The DISC community is deeply saddened by the passing away of Prof. Rien Kaashoek, a valued member of DISC, on November 21, 2024. Prof. Kaashoek was a prominent figure in operator theory for systems and control, significantly contributing to the advancement of the Dutch systems and control community on the international stage. In his memory, Prof. André Ran from VU Amsterdam, along with Prof. Hugo Jan Woerdeman from Drexel University and Prof. Sanne ter Horst from North-West University, South Africa—both former PhD students of Prof. Kaashoek—have written a tribute featured in this newsletter.
The DISC office extends its heartfelt congratulations to Bart Besselink from the University of Groningen on being awarded the prestigious ERC Consolidator Grant.
For the past months, I have visited many DISC research groups to get to know various DISC members and to gather inputs and feedback from DISC members. Last month, I can finally visit research groups in Maastricht University. I learnt a lot on the organization and the research focus of DISC affiliated groups in Maastricht University. I am looking forward to visiting University of Twente in the new year.
Last month, DISC board has decided on the 2025 DISC Summer School. The DISC Summer School in 2025 will be on “Estimation and control with limited communication and data”, which will be organized by Sasha Pogromsky (Eindhoven Univ. Tech.), Kanat Camlibel (Univ. Groningen), Henk van Waarde (Univ. Groningen) and Michelle Chong (Eindhoven Univ. Tech.). We are now in full swing, preparing for the organization of the summer school and you will receive further announcement from us in due course.
In the meantime, the organization of 2025 Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control is well underway and all of you have received the announcement of this important annual meeting. Please do not forget to submit abstracts and participate in this flagship meeting of DISC. As part of the tradition, we have started the procedure of DISC Best Thesis award where DISC will give prizes to all top three nominees and invite them to attend the upcoming Benelux meeting. This year’s committee comprises of Prof. Ming Cao (chair) from Univ. Groningen, Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani from TU Delft and Prof. Roland Toth from Eindhoven Univ. Tech.
Finally, DISC office would like to wish all DISC members happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year.
Bayu Jayawardhana
Maaike Kraeger-Holland
InvitationThe Organizing Committee has the pleasure of inviting you to participate in the
44th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control
March 18-20, 2025
Hotel Zuiderduin, Egmond aan Zee, The Netherlands
The aim of this meeting is to promote research activities and cooperation between researchers in Systems and Control. It is the forty-fourth in a series of annual conferences that are held alternately in Belgium and The Netherlands. The meeting takes place under the auspices of the Dutch Institute of Systems and Control (DISC).
Abstract submission: NOW OPEN
Registration: Mid December 2024
Deadline Abstract submission: January 10, 2025
Early registration closes: January 21, 2025
Late registration closes: February 15, 2025
https://www.beneluxmeeting.nl/
Plenary speakers include:
Kristin Y. Pettersen
Tom Oomen
Antonis Papachristodoulou
Fabrizio Dabbene
Organizing committee: Raffaella Carloni (RUG), Janset Dasdemir (UT), Javier Alonso Mora (TUD) and Erjen Lefeber (TU/e) with the assistance of Maaike Kraeger-Holland (office manager DISC/TUD) and Kaj Stavenuiter (student-assistant TUD).
We hope to welcome you at the 44th Benelux Meeting on Systems and Control!
On November 21 Rien Kaashoek passed away at the age of 87. Rien was well-known to many of the DISC members. He was an authority in operator theory and its applications, in particular in systems and control theory. For a long time he was a member of DISC. In the late eighties of the previous century, Rien was involved in teaching a course on H-infinity control for DISC. He also played an important role as co-organizer of the MTNS (Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems) conference 1989, which was held in Amsterdam. After that he was member of the Steering Committee of MTNS for a long period, until 2006. In addition, Rien was very much involved in the Steering committee of the IWOTA (International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications) conferences, after organizing the IWOTA 1985 in Amsterdam.
Up to very advanced age Rien was active in research; his last research monograph, written together with Sjoerd Verduyn Lunel appeared in 2022. Rien was co-author of 10 books and more than 200 papers dealing with aspects of operator theory and applications. In the eighties and nineties, in cooperation with among others Harm Bart and Israel Gohberg, he developed what was called the “state space method”, using ideas and techniques from systems theory to tackle problems in operator theory, integral equations, transport theory, inverse scattering and other problems in analysis.
Rien served the Dutch, as well as the international, mathematical community in several roles and continued to do so after his retirement in 2002. He received national and international recognition. Upon retirement he was knighted (Ridder in de orde van de Nederlandse Leeuw). Rien was also an honorary member of the Koninklijk Wiskundig Genootschap. Finally, he received an honorary doctorate from North West University in South Africa in 2014.
Rien will be missed by his colleagues for his open and friendly character, his positive attitude, his generosity and his friendship. Rien is survived by his wife Wies, and his children and grandchildren.
Delft University of Technology
Name: Bhargav Nallapu
Start date: 15th November, 2024
Job title: Postdoctoral Researcher
TUD E-mail: b.t.nallapu@tudelft.nl
Section: Cognitive Robotics
Supervisor: Arkady Zgonnikov
Short introduction: I am Bhargav, a researcher at the intersection of reinforcement learning and neuroscience of decision making and learning. I am excited to join the Cognitive Robotics department for my second postdoctoral fellowship, to study the scenarios of “Change of mind” in the context of decision making of an autonomous agent. I love running, biking, borrels and I am looking forward to playing in the Cricket leagues (go Team Netherlands!!). Please find me @ 34.F-1-480 if you like discussing the brain, prefrontal neural circuits, Cricket or just about good food!
Name: Jules Ronné
Start date: 15th of November
Job title: Post-doc researcher
E-mail: j.r.ronne@tudelft.nl
Section: Cognitive Robotics
Supervisor: Holger Caesar
Introduction: My first work experience as a mechanical engineer was as a bike designer. I realized we knew very little about designing bicycles that were easy to handle for urban uses. For this reason, I did PhD in biomechanics about bicycle handling quality. Now, I am pursuing my research about human control of bicycles as a postdoc in a collaboration between CoR and the Bicycle Lab with Holger Caesar and Jason Moore. More personally, I love cycling as a sport, as well as climbing, running, and skiing.
Eindhoven University of Technology
Control Systems Technology Group (no further introductions received yet):
Maehdeh Izanni: m.izadi.najafabadi1@tue.nl
Timo de Groot: t.d.groot2@tue.nl
Niek Doelman: N.J.Doelman@tue.nl deeltijd hoogleraar.
Robert de Bruijne r.c.a.dbruijne@tue.nl
Marijn Minkenberg m.minkenberg@tue.nl
Tessa Vermeer: T.d.vermeer@tue.nl 1/11/2024
Maarten van der Hulst, m.v.d.huls t@tue.nl 10/11/2024
Quinten van den Elsen, q.v.d.elsen@tue.nl 01/11/2024
Candidate: Ming Li
University and Department/Group: TU/e Control Systems Group
Thesis title: Safe Autonomy for Multi-Robot Coordination: A Three-Layer Hierarchical Approach
Promotor: prof.dr. S. Weiland
Date: 11 December 2024
Location: atlas 0.710
Time: 16.00 hrs.
Candidate: Max Spahn
University and Department/Group: TU Delft, Cognitive Robotics
Thesis title: Link to thesis
Promotors: 1st promotor: Dr. J. (Javier) Alonso-Mora, 2nd promotor: prof. dr. M. (Martijn) Wisse
Date: 11 December 2024
Location: Aula TU Delft, Senate Hall
Time: layman’s talk 17:00 hrs, defence 17:30 hrs
Link to livestream: not available yet, Max will send it upon your request
Candidate: Emin Martirosyan
University and Department/Group: DTPA, RUG
Thesis title: Optimal control and reinforcement learning algorithms for inverse dynamic games
Promotor: Prof Ming Cao and Prof Jacquelien Scherpen
Date: 13 December 2024
Location: Aula, Academy Building, Broerstraat 5 Groningen
Time: 11.00
Candidate: Matthijs de Jong
University and Department/Group: DTPA, RUG
Thesis title: Modelling and stabilizability of piezoelectric materials
Promotor: Prof Jacquelien Scherpen and Prof Bayu Jayawardhana
Date: 10 January 2025
Location: Aula, Academy Building, Broerstraat 5 Groningen
Time: 11.00
2024 Conference on Systems and Control (CDC) in Milano, Italy (16-19 December 2024)
CDC 2024
New DISC courses start as from 13 January 2025. Please register in time.
Course program – general information – DISC
The next issue of this Newsletter will appear in February 2025.
We encourage everyone involved in Systems and Control 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:
secr-DISC-ME@tudelft.nl.
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The DISC office is closed from 19 December 2024 till 6 January 2025.
We wish you a festive month of December and all the best for the coming New Year 2025!
