New Trends in Observer-based Control : An Introduction to Design Approaches and Engineering Applications

Pr. Olfa Boubaker is a full professor at the National Institute of Applied Sciences and Technology (INSAT) at the University of Carthage, Tunisia, where she specializes in control theory, nonlinear systems, and robotics. She holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the National Engineering School of Tunis and a Habilitation Universitaire in Control Engineering from the National Engineering School of Sfax. Prof. Boubaker is the series editor of the book series Medical Robots and Devices: New Developments and Advances."

Quanmin Zhu is Professor of control systems at the Department of Engineering Design and Mathematics, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK. He obtained his MSc in Harbin Institute of Technology, China in 1983 and Ph.D. in Faculty of Engineering, University of Warwick, UK in 1989. His main research interest is in the area of nonlinear system modelling, identification, and control. His other research interest is in investigating electrodynamics of acupuncture points and sensory stimulation effects in human body, modelling of human meridian systems, and building up electro-acupuncture instruments. He has published over 200 papers on these topics, edited five Springer books and one book for the other publisher, and provided consultancy to various industries. Currently, Professor Zhu is acting as Editor of International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, Editor of International Journal of Computer Applications in Technology, Member of Editorial Committee of Chinese Journal of Scientific Instrument, and editor of Elsevier book series of Emerging Methodologies and Applications in Modelling, Identification and Control. He is the founder and president of series annual International Conference on Modelling, Identification and Control.

MagdiSadek Mahmoud obtained B. Sc. (Honors) in communication engineering, M. Sc. in electronic engineering and Ph. D. in systems engineering, all from Cairo University in 1968, 1972 and 1974, respectively. He has been a professor of engineering since 1984. He is now a Distinguished Professor at KFUPM, Saudi Arabia. He was on the faculty at different universities worldwide including Egypt (CU, AUC), Kuwait (KU), UAE (UAEU), UK (UMIST), USA (Pitt, Case Western), Singapore (Nanyang) and Australia (Adelaide). He lectured in Venezuela (Caracas), Germany (Hanover), UK ((Kent), USA (UoSA), Canada (Montreal) and China (BIT, Yanshan). He is the principal author of forty-six (46) books, inclusive book-chapters and the author/co-author of more than 580 peer-reviewed papers.
He is currently actively engaged in teaching and research in the development of modern methodologies to distributed control and filtering, networked-control systems, triggering mechanisms in dynamical systems, renewable-energy systems, and information technology. He is a fellow of the IEE, a senior member of the IEEE, a member of Sigma Xi, the CEI (UK), the Egyptian Engineers society, the Kuwait Engineers society and a registered consultant engineer of information engineering and systems (Egypt).

José RAGOT received the "Diplome d'Ingénieur" (Engineer Degree) with specialization in control from the Ecole Centrale de Nantes (France) in 1969. Then, he joined the University of Nancy (France) where is received the "Diplôme d'Etudes Approfondies" (Master Degree) in 1970. In 1973 he obtained the "Diplôme de Doctorat" (Ph. D. degree), a position as assistant professor at University Henri Poincaré in Nancy, and in 1980 the "Diplôme de Doctorat-es-Sciences". José Ragot moved up to professor in 1985 at the Institut National Polytechnique de Lorraine (INPL, National Polytechnic Institute of Lorraine).
His major research fields include data validation and reconciliation, process diagnosis, fault detection, and isolation. Another part of his activities is devoted to modelisation and state estimation adapted to process diagnosis and mainly in the field of multi-models.
Prof. Ragot is a researcher in the "Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy" (CRAN, CNRS UMR 7039) where he was the head of the group "process diagnosis" during 12 years. Presently he is an Emeritus Professor (with the degree "Classe Exceptionnelle") at the "Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie" (french "Grande Ecole") where he has been in charge the formation in automatic control.

Dr. Karimi received the B.Sc. (First Hons.) degree in power systems from the Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, in 1998, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. (First Hons.) degrees in control systems engineering from the University of Tehran, Tehran, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. His research interests are in the areas of control systems/theory, mechatronics, networked control systems, intelligent control systems, signal processing, vibration control, ground vehicles, structural control, wind turbine control and cutting processes. He is an Editorial Board Member for some international journals and several Technical Committee. Prof. Karimi has been presented a number of national and international awards, including Alexander-von-Humboldt Research Fellowship Award (in Germany), JSPS Research Award (in Japan), DAAD Research Award (in Germany), August-Wilhelm-Scheer Award (in Germany) and been invited as visiting professor at a number of universities in Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Spain, China, Korea, Japan, India.