Newsletter October 2022

Message from the DISC Office

Dear all,

Welcome to the October newsletter.

The DISC 35 year’s celebration was a big success on 29 September. We want to thank all people who were able to attend the gathering at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht.

The course program 2022-2023 started 17 October with two courses onsite in Utrecht.  Good to see that so many of you have registered for the courses.

With best regards,

Henk Nijmeijer,
scientific director

Renate Kragtwijk,
DISC secretariat

DISC 35 years

 

35 years ago, we started to offer a course program.  It was a good occasion to celebrate this with the entire DISC community.  We invited PhD’s, postdocs and staff members for this occasion at the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht.

 

Several presentations were given, and Martha Otte was thanked for the work at the DISC Secretariat. Martha has left the DISC secretariat and is succeeded by Renate Kragtwijk.

 

 

 

 

 

IFAC 2029

IFAC

The event in the Jaarbeurs was also a perfect moment to celebrate the fact that the Netherlands

won the bid for IFAC 2029 in the RAI (Netherlands). The IFAC core team which presented the bid in London on the 13th of July gave a presentation.

Benelux Meeting 2023

We are pleased to announce the date of the 42nd edition of the Benelux Meeting.

It will be held from 21-23 March at Hotel Mennorode, Apeldoornseweg 185, 8075 RJ in Elspeet

The organising committee for the Benelux Meeting 2023 consists of Raffaella Carloni (RUG), Bayu Jayawardhana (RUG),  Erjen Lefeber (TU/e) and Javier Alonso Mora (TUD). 

 

DISC Best Thesis Award 2022

Dear all,

We would like to draw your attention to the DISC Best Thesis Award 2022. This annual award is for the best dissertation written by a DISC PhD student. An important condition is that the candidates should have obtained his/her PhD within 54/58 months and that he/she has obtained a DISC certificate.

The staff will receive a mail about the nomination procedure.

Summer School proposals 2023

Dear DISC member,

Every year DISC organizes a Summer School. This usually takes place in June/July.

We now invite proposals for next year.

For an overview of past DISC Summer Schools, please click here.
Template guidelines

 

Winter School proposals

DISC organizes a yearly Wintercourse, lectured by an international guest lecturer on a particular topic or research field relevant for systems and control. The course is typically scheduled in the winter trimester and can be organized in one or more university locations.

If you want to organize a DISC Wintercourse, please let us know by December 1, 2022.

Nominations for European Control Award 2023 – deadline November 30, 2022

It is time to nominate outstanding young researchers for the European Control Award 2023.

I would like to encourage you to 1) consider submitting a nomination, and 2) share this call with colleagues at institutions within your country.

More information about the award, eligibility criteria, etc. is available at https://euca-ecc.org/eca/.

Deadline for nominations is November 30, 2022.

Best regards,

Karl H. Johansson
President, EUCA

Course program 2022-2023

The course program 2022-2023 is finalised. You can register for the DISC courses via the DISC course platform.

The courses are held onsite in Utrecht, at Cursus- en vergadercentrum Domstad.

We are offering the following courses:

Learning and Adaptive Control
W.B.J. Hakvoort, University of Twente
H. Köroğlu, University of Twente

Identification of Networks of Dynamic Systems
M. Verhaegen, Delft University of Technology

Linear Matrix Inequalities in Control
S. Weiland, Eindhoven University of Technology
M.C.F. Donkers, Eindhoven University of Technology

Mathematical Models of Systems
J.W. Polderman, University of Twente
S. Trenn, University of Groningen

Nonlinear Control Systems
B. Jayawardhana, University of Groningen
B. Besselink, University of Groningen

Design Methods for Control Systems
T. A.E. Oomen, Eindhoven University of Technology
J.W. van Wingerden, Delft University of Technology

Nonlinear Control for Performance: Frequency domain approach
M.F. Heertjes, Eindhoven University of Technology
H. HosseinNia, Delft University of Technology

New people

Groningen University

Name: Le Liu
Starting date: 01-10-2022
Function: PhD
email: le.liu@rug.nl
Group: DTPA
Supervisor: Ming Cao
Project: Privacy and Security in multi-agent systems

Le Liu received the B.S. degree in Energy and Power Engineering from Northwest Agricultural University in 2019 and the M.S. degree in system and control from Dalian University of Technology in 2022.

His research interests include networked control systems, cyber physical security and multi-agent systems.

Name: Amir Shakouri
Starting Date: 01-10-2022
Function: PhD
Email: a.shakouri@rug.nl
Group: Systems, Control and Optimization (SCO)
Supervisors: Henk van Waarde and Kanat Camlibel
Project: Online Experiment Design for Data-Driven Control

My name is Amir Shakouri and I recently joined the SCO group at the Bernoulli Institute where I am working with Henk van Waarde and Kanat Camlibel on online experiment design for data-driven control within the informativity framework. I obtained my master’s degree in Aerospace Engineering with a focus on space systems from Sharif University of Technology (SUT), Tehran, Iran. In recent years, I was a research assistant at SUT and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS) working on a variety of control methods to deal with uncertain/unknown systems such as prescribed-time control and suboptimal output-feedback control with applications to space systems. When not working, I usually play the violin, play video games, or hang out with friends.

Name: Lihua Zhou
Starting date: 01-11-2022
Function: PhD
Email: lihua.zhou@rug.nl
Group: DTPA
Supervisor: Jacquelien Scherpen
Project: Model Reduction and Distributed Control of Microgrids under Cyber Attacks

Lihua Zhou received the B.Sc. degree in automation and M.Sc. degree in circuits and system from Anhui University of Science and Technology in 2014 and 2017, respectively. She is currently working toward the Ph.D. degree in Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen. She is also with the School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University. Her current research interests include networked control system, smart grid and distributed control.

 

Eindhoven University of Technology

Name: Shuhao Qi
Starting date: 19-09-2022
Function: PhD
email: s.qi@tue.nl
Group: Control Systems group
Supervisor: Zhiyong Sun and Sofie Haesaert

Project: Autonomous engineering systems and autonomous motion control

My name is Shuhao Qi, born and raised in China. I recently joined the Control System Group at TU/e as a PhD student. My interest includes motion planning and control for robotics systems. During my PhD, I will leverage the tools from control theory and formal methods to guarantee the safety of robotic behaviors.

Before my PhD, I have experience with different types of robots, including mobile, quadrupedal, and rehabilitation robots. These experiences guide me to have more general thinking about robots. I hope to explore the topic of safety control and make more robots deployed in the real world.

Besides research, I enjoy traveling and learning about different cultures. One impressive experience is voluntary teaching in an orphanage in Tibet. I met many lovely Tibetan kids and I was fascinated with their faith in Buddhism. In the Netherlands, I look forward to experiencing different cultures and meeting friends from all over the world.

Delft University of Technology

Name:Yancong Lin
Starting date: 01-10-2022
Function: Postdoc
email: y.Lin-1@tudelft.nl
Group: TUD-3ME-CoR
Supervisors: Dr. Holger Caesar

My name is Yancong LIN, a postdoc researcher in the Intelligent Vehicles Group. I will be working with Dr. Holger Caesar on data-efficient visual perception for autonomous vehicles.

I am enthusiastic about data-efficient learning by pre-wiring deep networks with generic innate priors, such that the inductive knowledge no longer needs to be learned from big data. The goal is to better understand the humanly constructed world without relying on large manually labeled datasets.

I received a PhD degree in Computer Vision this April, from the Pattern Recognition & Bioinformatics Group, TU Delft.

Name: Ekaterina Karmanova
Starting date: 01-10-2022
Function: PhD
email: e.karmanova@tudelft.nl
Group: TUD-3ME-CoR
Supervisors: Michaël Wiertlewski and Eline van der Kruk

My name is Ekaterina (Kate), and I am starting my PhD at TU Delft. I got my bachelors in robotics and mechatronics studying underwater vehicles from BMSTU in Moscow. Then I decided to broaden my expertise and go up!

I got my Masters in System and Space engineering systems from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, with my research focused on swarm of drones and HRI.

At TU Delft with the help of my experienced supervisors Michaël Wiertlewski and Eline van der Kruk, I am going to dive into HRI exploring haptic technologies and their impact on our wellbeing. The project I will be working on is dedicated to human-human interaction via a device with a tactile feedback. We are aiming to improve the perception of directional stimuli and therefore enhance the physical guidance for the human while performing some exercise. The research involves lots of user studies, mechanical design and brainstorming!

In my free time I am playing ukulele, go hiking or cycling around – Netherlands seems to be perfect for such activities! I also like baking: pies, cakes and cookies.

Name: Chrysovalanto Messiou
Starting date: 01-10-2022
Function: PhD
email: C.Messiou@tudelft.nl
Group: TUD-3ME-CoR
Supervisors: Prof. Georgios Papaioannou and Prof. Riender Happee

I am Chrys and I am the new PhD candidate joining the intelligent vehicles group. My research will focus on the investigation and development of models predicting postural stabilization and motion comfort in automated vehicles. My supervisors are Prof. Georgios Papaioannou and Prof. Riender Happee.

I did my Bachelor at the University of Surrey, United Kingdom, in the department of Mechanical Engineering and with a specified track in Biomedical Engineering. Then, I continued with my Master’s in Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technologies at the University College London. After finishing with my studies, I moved to Italy at the department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova as a research fellow. My research there focused on the topics of environment perception, Brain-Machine-Interface, autonomous/semi-autonomous navigation and machine learning.

I am originally from Cyprus, a small island in the Mediterranean, so naturally one of my favourite activities is swimming. In my free time I really enjoy travelling and being outdoors.

PhD defences

Candidate: Bruno F. Ferreira de Brito
Group: TUD-3ME-CoR
Thesis: Interaction-Aware Motion Planning in Crowded Dynamic environments
Promotor: J. Alonso Mora, R. Babuska
Date: 06-10-2022
Time: 15.00

Candidate:  F.S.J. (Feye) Hoekstra
Group: TU/e – EE- Control Systems group
Thesis: Electric Vehicle Range Extension through Empirical Battery Modelling, State Estimation and Active Cell Balancing
Promotor: dr.ir. M.C.F. Donkers
Date: 7 Oktober 2022
Location: Atlas 0.710 TU/e
Time: 16.00

 

26th ACM International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control – 9-12 May 2023, San Antonio, TX, USA

Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC) 2023 is the 26th in a series of conferences focusing on original research on concepts, tools, and techniques from computer science, control theory, and applied mathematics for the analysis and control of hybrid dynamical systems, with an emphasis on computational aspects. By drawing on strategies from computation and control, the hybrid systems field offers techniques that are applicable to both man-made cyber-physical systems (ranging from small robots to global infrastructure networks) and natural systems (ranging from biochemical networks to physiological models). Papers in the conference are expected to range over a wide spectrum of topics from theoretical results to practical considerations, and from academic research to industrial adoption.

Important dates

HSCC 2023 will be part of the 16th Cyber Physical Systems Week (CPS Week) and co-located with the International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems (ICCPS), Information Processing in Sensor Networks (IPSN), the Real-Time and Embedded Technology and Applications Symposium (RTAS), Conference on Internet-of-Things Design and Implementation (IOTDI), and related workshops.

 

Next issue of the newsletter

The next issue of this Newsletter will appear in November 2022.

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: Secr-DISC-3ME@tudelft.nl or r.c.m.kragtwijk@tudelft.nl

You receive this newsletter because you are a member of DISC.  If you want to be removed from the mailing list, please let us know by sending an email to Secr-DISC-3ME@tudelft.nl.