Dear all,
We hope you have all had an enjoyable and relaxing summer vacation and that you are ready for the new academic year. The course program 2016-2017 is ready and registration will open in the first full week of September. This year the courses will start a bit later, in November, and the last course will end in June. Right now we are also putting the final touches to an updated version of the “DISC forum website” which will hence be know as the DISC course platform. You can read more about that further on in the newsletter.
We congratulate DISC members who have recently been awarded prizes and of course also support Tom Oomen who has been nominated for New Scientist’s “Scientist of the Year” contest. You can vote for Tom until September 7, 2016. We also welcome the new DISC members and wish you all a productive academic year!
Best regards,
Henk Nijmeijer,
scientific director
Martha Otte,
DISC secretariat
We are updating the login part of the website. The “disc forum website” will from now on be know as the “disc course platform”.
The DISC course platform will have a fresh new look but will basically work the same as the old website. It will have some new functions. For instance an overview of your grades and ECTS (for DISC courses taken from this academic year on).
Hopefully you will like the new website. It is scheduled to be ready in the first full week of September and all DISC members will receive a notification email. If you have questions please contact Martha Otte at the DISC secretariat: m.w.otte@tudelft.nl.
The course program 2016-2017 is ready. Registration for will open in the first full week of September.
Check the course schedule 2016-2017 for dates and times. You may have checked the preliminary course schedule, please note that we have added a new course which will start in November: Computational Linear Algebra: A least squares perspective (prof. M. Verhaegen and prof. B. De Moor).
This Academic year the following courses are scheduled:
Linear Matrix Inequalities for Control
Computational Linear Algebra, A least squares perspective
Mathematical Models of Systems
Modeling and Control of Hybrid Systems
Nonlinear Control Systems
Design Methods for Control Systemss
Distributed Parameter Systems
Automatic Verification and Synthesis of Complex Systems
The courses are taught at Hogeschool Domstad in Utrecht, location Koningsbergerstraat 9. For more information see their website.
In November 2016 the following course will start:
Linear Matrix Inequalities for Control
Lecturers: S. Weiland and R. Toth
Computational Linear Algebra, A least squares perspective
Lecturers: M. Verhaegen and B. De Moor
Don’t forget to register before you participate.
The wintercourse 2016-2017 is scheduled for the first (full) week of December 2016. The topic will be “modelling in the life sciences” and it will be hosted by the University of Wageningen. The speakers will be prof. dr. ir. Johan Schoukens (Free University of Brussel) and prof. dr. Jaap Molenaar (Wageningen University).We will keep you updated on this!
Mark your calendars! The 36th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control will take place from Tuesday March 28 till Thursday March 30, 2017 in conference center Sol cress, Spa, Belgium.
We would like to invite you to suggest topics/lecturers for the Summer School 2017. The Summer School is tentatively scheduled for the week of July 3, 2017. It is a four day event for which several national and international lecturers are invited. This year the topic of the Summer school was “A Systems and Control Perspective in Human-Robot-Environment Interaction” and it was organized by Raffaella Carloni, Jens Kober, Manuel Mazo Espinosa and Alessandro Saccon. Read more about it in on the DISC website or in the newsletter for June.
If you have suggestions or would like to be involved in organising the Summer School please contact the DISC secretariat.
On 30 June 2016, Prof. dr. Ming Cao received the European Control Award at the award ceremony during the 2016 European Control Conference (ECC) in Aalborg, Denmark. The award is sponsored by the European Control Association (EUCA), which recognizes ‘outstanding contributions by a young researcher under the age of 40 in the area of systems and control’. Prof. Cao received the award for his “fundamental contributions to distributed and cooperative control.” Also in the 2016 ECC, Prof. Cao delivered a plenary lecture with the title “An evolutionary approach to coordination of self-interested agents.”
During the ECC 2016, which was held from June 29-July 1, 2016 in Aalborg, Denmark three DISC students made it to the top 5 of best students papers:
Sebastian Trip from University of Groningen
Advisor: Claudio De Persis
Optimal Generation in Structure-Preserving Power Networks with Second-Order Turbine-Governor Dynamics
Noorma Yulia Megawati from University of Groningen
Advisor: Arjan J. van der Schaft
Equivalence of Regular Matrix Pencil DAE Systems by Bisimulation
Sofie Haesaert from TU Eindhoven
Advisors: Paul M.J. Van den Hof and Alessandro Abate
Experiment Design for Formal Verification Via Stochastic Optimal Control
Congratulations to all!
Sander Wahls has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant by the European Research Council.
Nonlinear effects are ubiquitous in many modern technology fields such as photonics and hydromechanical engineering. The standard method to deal with nonlinear effects is to use linear approximations because they are simple to work with. Engineers typically consider nonlinear effects a nuisance that cannot be dealt with in exact terms. This intuition is deeply engrained in the collective subconscious, but it is not always correct — not all nonlinearities are equally bad.
Many practically important nonlinear systems can be approached using so-called nonlinear Fourier transforms, which offer simple closed-form descriptions for nonlinear phenomena that are difficult to work with in the conventional time- or frequencydomain, similar to how the conventional Fourier transform simplifies the analysis of linear systems.
Today, almost fifty years after the discovery of the first nonlinear Fourier transform by Gardner et al., nonlinear Fourier transforms have been studied intensively in mathematics and physics. However, despite many potential applications, they have not yet found widespread use in engineering. Sander Wahls aims to push nonlinear Fourier transform into engineering practice by developing fast nonlinear Fourier transforms for two prototypical applications, fiber-optic communications and water-wave data analysis.
Tom Oomen had been nominated for the “Scientist of year” contest which is organized by New Scientist. The contest was first held in 2015 aims to provide a platform for young scientist to share their research with a larger public. The contest if for Dutch and Belgian scientists and in the past year universities have sent in applications. From these New Scientist has selected 25 nominees.
The winner will be announced on September 22 and until September 8 you can cast an online ballot for Tom here.
Read more about the contest and the candidates on the new scientist website: http://www.newscientist.nl/blogs/new-scientist-maakt-kandidaten-bekend-voor-wetenschapstalent-2016/
Professor Maarten Steinbuch will be the Simon Stevin Master this year, the highest distinction for technical sciences in the Netherlands. It is an honorary title, bestowed by the STW Technology Foundation, and it comes with half a million euros to spend on research.
STW praises the way that Steinbuch creates a bridge between science and industry, and their cooperation in solving societal challenges. In his research, Steinbuch works with leading companies like ASML, Philips, TNO and Océ as well as with many SME’s. It is due in part to Steinbuch that the Netherlands has become a hotspot for developments centering on electric driving, precision systems control and microsurgery.
On June 24, Hans Schumacher gave his farewell lecture at Tilburg University on the occasion of his retirement. Hans, Professor of Mathematics at Tilburg University, and a well-known lecturer (e.g. Hybrid Systems) and board member of DISC (1999-2005), addressed in his lecture the role of metaphors/equations in both ordinary language and mathematics. It was good to see so many (also already retired) colleagues from DISC attended his lecture. This made the reception afterwards to a ”gezellige” reunion. Hans started his academic career in 1976 at the Free University of Amsterdam. After his PhD., with co-supervisors, Ruth Curtain and Jan Willems, he went for one year to MIT. From 1982-1985 he worked at both the Eras-mus University in Rotterdam and ESTEC in Noordwijk. From 1984-1999 his major employer was CWI at Amsterdam. From 1987 on he was part-time affiliated with Tilburg University, where he engaged in a full time position from 1999 until now. In Tilburg, Hans took a lead in the set up of the master program Quantitative Finance and Actuarial Science. The last decade Hans was scientifically in particular involved with Netspar, an institution that is dedicated to promoting a better understanding of the economic and social impact of pension systems, aging populations, and retirement in the Netherlands and Europe.
Hans participated either as promotor or co-promotor in many PhD commit-tees of DISC students and has a high esteem in the systems and control community. His scientific children are all around the world. Though Hans has formally retired, we expect he will still be engaged in research for, at least, the next few years. We join in with the words of the Rector and Head of the Department of Econometrics and OR of Tilburg University who wished him all the best in his new, less rail-road intensive, life.
Eindhoven University of Technology
Name: A. Marquez-Ruiz
Starting date: 15/6/2016
Function: Post doc
Email: a.marquez-ruiz@tue.nl
Group: Control Systems group
Supervisor: L. Ozkan
Project: Improvise
Alejandro Marquez was born in Medellín, Colombia. He received the Ph.D degree in Engineering with emphasis in Energetic Systems of National University of Colombia-Medellín. The Ph.D thesis was titled Hierarchical Robust Real Time Optimization with zone control. He obtained a B.A. in Control Engineering degree from National University of Colombia in Medellin. During the bachelor studies he worked in applied POD techniques and MPC for simple thermal systems. Later on, he started a Master in Chemical Engineering where he developed Model predictive controllers for tubular reactor using once again POD. In this period he worked for a semester in the University of Sao Paulo together with Prof. Darci Odloak at the LCSP (Laboratory of Control and Process Simulation). After this, he started the Ph.D studies, where he developed hierarchical MPC control strategies for large scale systems. This project was partially developed with EU funding under the FP7 in the Project HD-MPC. During the Ph.D studies he spent six months as a research intern at RWTH Aachen, together with Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt. Besides that, he has been teaching courses on Multivariable Control, Process Modeling, Mass and Energy Balances, Process Simulation and Predictive Control. In the last two years he has been involved in several research projects involving many subjects such as traffic control and energy management systems, and others. Currently he is a post-doctoral researcher of the Control System group at the TU-Eindhoven. He is involved in the IMPROVISE (Improve Process Operation via Rigorous Simulation Models) project with focus on modeling, estimation and control of reactive batch distillation columns under the supervision of Dr. L. Ozkan and in partnership with DSM
Name: E. Najafi
Starting date: 1/6/2016
Function: Post doc
Email: e.najafi@tue.nl
Group: Control Systems group
Supervisor: T. Donkers
Project: 3CCar
Esmaeil Najafi is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Control Systems group of the Department of Electrical Engineering of Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. He received the BSc degree and the MSc degree in Mechanical Engineering, Dynamics and Control, from the K. N. Toosi University of Technology, Iran in 2007 and 2010, respectively. Esmaeil received his PhD degree in Systems and Control from the Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, in 2016. His PhD research, titled Automatic Synthesis of Supervisory Control Systems, has mainly dealt with supervisory control systems, cooperative control systems, machine learning, robotics, and mechatronics. During his PhD, Esmaeil obtained the DISC certificate for fulfilling the graduate course program of the Dutch Institute of Systems and Control. From 2015 until 2016, he was a Mechatronics Lecturer at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. Currently, Esmaeil is working on the control of energy systems, particularly on battery management, with Prof. H.J. Bergveld and Dr. M.C.F. Donkers.
Groningen University
Name: L. Souto de Carvalho
Starting date: 1/8/2016
Function: PHd
Email:l.souto.de.carvalho@rug.nl
Group: DPTA
Supervisor: prof. J. Scherpen and prof. M. Cao
Hello, my name is Laiz Souto and I am a Brazilian-Spanish citizen originally from São Paulo, Brazil.
From the 15th of August I am a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Groningen with the Discrete Technology and Production Automation (DTPA) research group, working in the ERSAS project, a multidisciplinary collaboration between the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences and the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. My task within this proposal is to develop control algorithms for sustainable, reliable, efficient, and socially acceptable energy system integration.
I did my Major in Electrical Engineering, option Electrical Energy and Automation in 2013, and obtained my Master’s degree in Electric Power Systems in 2016 at the Escola Politécnica of the University of São Paulo. There I was an undergraduate research fellow at the Energy Group and a graduate research fellow at the Laboratory of Power System Protection and Automation.Also I was a visiting researcher at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden from 2014 to 2015.
I was awarded the Prof. Dr. Gilberto Aurio Falcone Prize in 2013 for the best final degree project, a scholarship from the Toshiba Scholarship Program for my Master’s thesis project in 2014, and the third place of the 2015 Climate-KIC Climathon São Paulo. Moreover, I am a member of IEEE since 2014 and CIGRÉ Brasil CE-B5 on Protection and Automation since 2015.
Delft University of Technology
Candidate: Max Potters
Group: DCSC
Thesis: Experiment Design for Identification of Structured Linear Systems
Promotor: Prof.dr.ir. P.M.J. van den Hof, Prof.dr.ir. X. Bombois
Date: 28-06-2016
Location: Aula Senaatszaal, Mekelweg 5
Time: 12.30-14.30
Twente University
Candidate: D. Dresscher, MSc
Group: Robotics and Mechatronics
Thesis: Controlled Passive Actuation: Concepts for energy efficient actuation using mechanical storage elements and continuously variable transmissions.
Promotor: Prof.dr.ir. S. Stramigioli
Date: 9 november 2016
Location: University of Twente – prof.dr. G. Berkhoff room, building de Waaier 4
Time: 14.45 uur
The next issue of this Newsletter will appear in September 2016.
We encourage the contributors to provide newsworthy information. In principle, we intend to publish any message offered. However, we reserve the right to edit certain parts of a submission.
Please send your contributions to: m.w.otte@tudelft.nl
