Dear all,
This academic year is almost finished and you are probably looking forward to a well deserved Summer holiday. The past few months have asked a lot of everyone’s flexibility and resourcefulness and some rest is welcome. In September we will start again, though a return to normal will not be possible for some time.
Our DISC course program for 2020-2021 is ready. We have decided to offer all Fall courses online. From January onward we have planned to resume teaching in Utrecht. We are aware that circumstances may arise which will force us to change these plans and we will do so if necessary.
A major event for DISC in 2021 is of course the European Control Conference. The ECC 2021 will have a hybrid format and we will set up an online conference but also plan to welcome as many of you as possible in De Doelen in Rotterdam. The website for the ECC 2021 is now launched and the submission will open in September.
Enjoy the Summer!
With best regards,
Henk Nijmeijer,
scientific director
Martha Otte,
DISC secretariat
The DISC course program 2020-2021 is ready! We have decided to offer all Fall courses online. The courses in the Winter and Spring trimester will be planned in Utrecht. The 1,5 meters restriction has implications for the number of people that we can fit into one lecture room so we are keeping in touch with cursus en vergadercentrum Domstad to see how that situation evolves.
You will find the course schedule here. Registration will open around August 1, 2020 on the DISC course platform.
In the Fall the following courses are scheduled:
Model Reduction for Control, from Linear to Nonlinear Systems ONLINE (September 7 until September 28, 2020)
J. Scherpen
K. Fujimoto
System Identification ONLINE (September 14 until November 2, 2020)
P. Van den Hof
J. Schoukens
G. Bottegal
Input Design and Parameter Estimation for Non-Linear Systems ONLINE (November 16 until December 7, 2020)
H. Stigter
K. Keesman
Two CS researchers have been successful in obtaining Best Paper Awards of IFAC Journals in their respective domains.
Assistant Professor Leyla Özkan received the Best Paper Award for the Best Survey paper published in the IFAC Journal of Process Control in the triennium 2017-2019, for the survey paper written with her former PhD student Bahadir Saltik:
M.B. Saltik, L. Özkan, J.H.A. Ludlage, S. Weiland and P.M.J. Van den Hof. An outlook on robust model predictive control algorithms: reflections on performance and computational aspects. Review Paper, Journal of Process Control, Vol. 61, pp. 77-102, January 2018.
Postdoc researcher Xiaodong Cheng received a Best Paper Award from the IFAC Journal Automatica, for the best paper published in the triennium 2017-2019. The paper dealing with model reduction of dynamic network systems, is a result of his PhD work in RU Groningen:
X. Cheng, J.M.A. Scherpen and B. Besselink. Balanced truncation of networks linear passive systems. Automatica, Vol. 104, pp. 17-25, June 2019. Xiaodong works as a postdoc researcher in the ERC project SYSDYNET in CS, dealing with data-driven modelling in dynamic networks.
The awards will be presented during the online awards session of the 21st IFAC World Congress, Berlin, Germany, 12-17 July 2020.
Tamas Keviczky, professor of Networked Cyber-Physical Systems and a team of researchers and students from TU Delft in cooperation with the companies Van der Hoeven Horticultural Projects, Keygene and Hoogendoorn Growth Management has won the 2nd International Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge. Five teams participated, the Automatoes team, with the help of advanced data-driven control algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI), not only achieved the best tomato harvest after six months, but also scored best on sustainability in a fully automated greenhouse.
Read more here: https://www.tudelft.nl/en/2020/3me/june/tamas-keviczky-and-team-win-the-international-autonomous-greenhouse-challenge/
Wageningen University
Postdoc control and decision support in greenhouse cultivation
University of Groningen
Associate or Full Professor in Optimization
Tenure Track Assistant Professor in Data-driven Control
KU Leuven
Position Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Computational Machine Learning
Delft University of Technology
Name: Tom Driessen
Starting date: July 1, 2020
Function: PhD
Email: t.driessen@tudelft.nl
Group: CoR
Supervisor: Dr. J. de Winter
My name is Tom. I studied mechanical engineering in Delft and I will now join CoR to explore how we can use data to provide feedback to drivers, with the aim of improving safety. During this project I will be supervised by Joost, who also guided me during my master thesis. In that project we worked on a vibrotactile interface that communicated a vehicle’s observations and uncertainties to the driver.
A personal introduction: I am 26 years old, born in Noordwijk and I now live in the Hague with three friends. I grew up near the beach, and that is still where I like to spend most of my spare time. My favorite hobby is kiteboarding, I also love basketball and I recently picked up paragliding.
Eindhoven University of Technology
Name: Viral Gosar
Starting date: June 1, 2020
Function: PhD
Email: V.Gosar@tue.nl
Group: Dynamics & Control
Supervisor: Prof.dr. H. Nijmeijer
Project: CATALYST
My name is Viral Gosar and I am from India. I have been in Europe since 2017, first in Prague and recently in the Netherlands to pursue my dual masters respectively in the field of automotive. Now, I will be joining the D&C group as a PhD candidate under the supervision of Prof. dr. H. Nijmeijer and Dr. ir. I.J. M. Besselink. My role will be focused on autonomous driving of articulated commercial vehicle at distribution centres.
Name: Maarten Jongeneel
Starting date: June 1, 2020
Function: PhD
Email: M.J.Jongeneel@tue.nl
Group: Dynamics & Control
Supervisor: Prof.dr.ir. N. van de Wouw and Dr. Alessandro Saccon
Project: I.AM project
Hi everyone! My name is Maarten Jongeneel and I will start my PhD within the D&C group at June 1st. Originally I’m from Nieuwegein (near Utrecht) but moved to Eindhoven when I started my bachelor Mechanical Engineering in 2014. In 2017 I started my master Mechanical Engineering within the D&C group. At the same time, I started working as a design engineer at Prodrive Technologies. In March 2020 I graduated from my masters with the project “Model-Based Visual Object Tracking with Collision Models” where I created an object tracking algorithm using computer vision and impact models. This thesis was already related to the H2020 I.AM. EU project coordinated by the TU/e (www.i-am-project.eu) and during my PhD I will continue with this project. In my free time I like to play sports (volleyball, bouldering, tennis, road cycling) and I often play the piano.
Eindhoven University of Technology
Candidate: Giuseppe Belgioioso
Group: Control Systems
Thesis: Equilibrium Seeking in Generalized Network Games: An Operator Theoretic Approach
Promotor: prof.dr. Siep Weiland
Date: 1 July 2020
Location: online
Time: 16.00 h.
The next issue of this Newsletter will appear in September 2020.
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
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