Hector Budman, PEng

Hector Budman is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Professor Budman’s research is multi-disciplinary, leading him to undertake collaborative work in pharmaceuticals, water treatment, minerals processing, and pulp and paper industries.

Typically when a system is modeled, there is some difference between the actual process and the model. As a result, control systems based on process models have to be designed to compensate for the difference. Professor Budman’s research investigates the application of robust control theory to advance control techniques such as Model Predictive Control, Inferential Control and Non-Linear Control. In order to deal with the model inaccuracy, Professor Budman studies methods for quantifying the model uncertainty from experimental data. He also designs steady state estimators so that controlled variables can be inferred from secondary measurements; such as controlling concentrations using temperatures.

Furthermore, chemical processes are generally non-linear, especially when operated in a wide range of operating conditions. Hence, these processes need to be controlled using non-linear controllers. The obstacle that Professor Budman’s work seeks to overcome when designing non-linear controllers is to obtain a simple model of the processes under study. Typical processes studied are bioreactions, solidification of metal, cells and tissues.

In addition to his research work, Professor Budman has authored and co-authored over 150 journal publications in process modelling and controls with applications to biotechnology and reaction systems. He also co-authored the book “Periodic Operations of Chemical Reactors” and chaired the October 2014 Canadian Conference in Chemical Engineering.

• process control, modelling of chemical systems, monitoring of chemical processes, inferential sensors, Process Systems Engineering, Robust Control, Modelling and Control of Nonlinear Processes, Chemical process control, Model Predictive Control, Systems biology, Modeling, control and optimization of biological processes, Metabolic flux analysis, Dynamic metabolic flux models, Run-to-run (batch to batch) optimization of pharmaceutical process, Monitoring/Fault Detection of chemical and biological/biotechnological processes, biochemical and biomedical engineering, Multivariate statistical methods for monitoring and fault detection, Inferential (soft) sensors

• 1987, Doctorate Mechanical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

• 1983, Master's Mechanical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

• 1979, Bachelor's Mechanical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel

• 2016 2016 Sandford Fleming Teaching Award

• 2009 2009 Best Paper of Bioprocess and Biosystems Engineering Journal

• 2014 awarded by Canadian Society of Chemical Engineering for major contributions in Process Systems Engineering

• CHE 211 - Fluid Mechanics
  • Taught in 2021
• CHE 341 - Introduction to Process Control
  • Taught in 2023, 2024, 2025
• CHE 522 - Advanced Process Dynamics and Control
  • Taught in 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025
• CHE 524 - Process Control Laboratory
  • Taught in 2021, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026
• CHE 624 - Advanced Process Dynamics and Control
  • Taught in 2021

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Zheng H, Ricardez-Sandoval L, Budman H, Robust estimation and economic predictive control for dynamic flux systems under probabilistic uncertainty, Computers and Chemical Engineering, , 2020

• Agarwal P, Tamer M, Sahraei MH, Budman H, Deep Learning for Classification of Profit-Based Operating Regions in Industrial Processes, Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research, Industrial Engineering and Chemistry Research, 2378, 2019

• Hille, Rubin and Hector Budman, Simultaneous identification and optimization of biochemical processes under model-plant mismatch using output uncertainty bounds, Computers and Chemical Engineering, 125, 2018

• Nikdel, Ali and Braatz, Richard D and Budman, Hector M, A systematic approach for finding the objective function and active constraints for dynamic flux balance analysis, Bioprocess and biosystems engineering, 1, 2018

• Kumar, Divya and Budman, Hector, Applications of Polynomial Chaos Expansions in optimization and control of bioreactors based on dynamic metabolic flux balance models, Chemical Engineering Science, 18, 2017

• Fontes, Cristiano Hora and Budman, Hector, A hybrid clustering approach for multivariate time series--A case study applied to failure analysis in a gas turbine, ISA transactions, 513, 2017

• Du, Yuncheng and Duever, Thomas A and Budman, Hector, Generalized polynomial chaos-based fault detection and classification for nonlinear dynamic processes, Industrial \\& Engineering Chemistry Research, 2069, 2016

• Santander, Omar and Elkamel, Ali and Budman, Hector, Economic model predictive control of chemical processes with parameter uncertainty, Computers \\& Chemical Engineering, 10, 2016

• Zavatti, Vanessa and Budman, Hector and Legge, Raymond and Tamer, Melih, Monitoring of an antigen manufacturing process, Bioprocess and biosystems engineering, 855, 2016

• Ohadi, Kaveh and Legge, Raymond L and Budman, Hector M, Intrinsic fluorescence-based at situ soft sensor for monitoring monoclonal antibody aggregation, Biotechnology progress, 1423, 2015