All LA news

LA Wins the BOPTEST Challenge: Smart building HVAC control !

Published:20.10.24 — Congratulations to the LA team Jicheng Shi, Wenbin Wang and Wenjie Xu for winning this year's BOPTest Challenge!

Two PhD positions & a Postdoc available in the Automatic Control Lab

Published:20.10.24 — We are searching for two excellent PhD students and a postdoc in the Automatic Control lab to work on the TurboHeat project "Model-Based Multi-Time Scale Control and Co-Design of Turbo Compressor Driven Heat Pumps". Candidates with a strong background in control and optimization and a desire to work on both novel control theory and computational tools in a highly motivated and multidiciplinary team are encouraged to apply. More details can be found under Open Positions in the menu.

Congratulations to Clara on succesfully completing her PhD!

Published:27.09.24 — The public defense of Clara Galimberti took place on Monday, 23/09/24

New PhD Student

Published:25.09.24 — Vishnu Varadan has joined the Data-Driven Modelling and Control group since the first of August 2024 as a PhD student. He will be working on Data-Driven Nonlinear Control of High Precision Robotic Systems.

Welcome to Jakob Nylöf!

Published:02.09.24 — Jakob has joined the DECODE group to work on distributional robust control under the supervision of Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate, Daniel Kuhn and John Lygeors. He's also a student member of the NCCR automation.

New PhD Thesis

Published:26.07.24 — The public defence of Philippe Schuchert's Thesis entitled "Frequency domain data-driven robust and optimal control" was held on 5th, July 2024.

New PhD Thesis

Published:24.07.24 — The public defence of Navid Asmari Saadabad Thesis entitled "Data-Driven Methods for Controller Design in Atomic Force Microscopy" was held on 30th, April 2024.

Two PhD positions avaiable in the DECODE group

Published:21.06.24 — Two PhD positions are available within the DECODE group of EPFL on "Nonlinear data-driven control: robust closed-loop stability and performance guarantees" and "A Bayesian framework for optimal control". Candidates with a strong methodological background and motivated by research on theory and algorithms are encouraged to apply. More details can be found under Open Positions in the menu.

Clara Galimberti finalist for the IEEE CSS Swiss Young Author Award

Published:13.06.24 — Finalist for the IEEE CSS Swiss Young Author Award

Maryam Kamgarpour wins European Control Award

Published:13.05.24 — Maryam Kamgarpour, head of the Systems Control and Multiagent Optimization Research lab (SYCAMORE) in the School of Engineering, has been named winner of the European Control Award for 2024 by the European Control Association.

New PhD student

Published:30.04.24 — Laura Meroi recently joined LA. She will work on neural network control for non-linear systems with dissipativity and performance guarantees toward her PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate.

New PhD student

Published:30.04.24 — Nicolas has recently joined the DECODE group as a Ph.D. student. Welcome on board!

Two PhD positions avaiable in DECODE

Published:04.04.24 — Two PhD positions are available within the DECODE group of EPFL (Switzerland) on PAC-Bayes and distributionally robust optimal control. Candidates with a strong methodological background and motivated by research on theory and algorithms are encouraged to apply. More details can be found under Open Positions in the menu.

New PhD Thesis

Published:28.03.24 — The public defence of Paul Scharnhorst's Thesis entitled "Quantifying the Unknown: Data-Driven Approaches and Applications in Energy Systems" was held on Friday 22rd, March 2024.

New PhD Thesis

Published:07.03.24 — The public defence of Loris Di Natale's Thesis entitled "Fusing Pre-existing Knowledge and Machine Learning for Enhanced Building Thermal Modeling and Control" was held on Friday 23rd, February 2024.

New PhD Thesis

Published:07.03.24 — The public defence of Baiwei Guo's Thesis entitled "Data-Driven Control and Optimization under Noisy and Uncertain Conditions" was held on Friday 1st December 2023.

Talk by Ran Chen

Published:16.01.24 — On Thursdyay, 18/1/24, Ran Chen will give the talk "Advancing Closed-Loop Identification in Sparse Linear Systems: Insights from Controller Design through Fractional Parameterization and Sparsity Invariance". The seminar will start at 11h00 in ME C2 405. 

Talk by Vishnu Varadan

Published:02.01.24 — On Tuesday, 16/1/24, Vishnu Varadan will give the talk "Data-Driven Control Methods for Beam Wire Scanners". The seminar will start at 11h00 in ME C2 405. 

Talk by Laura Meroi

Published:30.12.23 — On Friday, 12/1/24, Laura Meroi will give the talk "Model-based vs data-driven approaches to the detection of cyber-attacks". The seminar will start at 11h00 in ME C2 405. 

Talk by Nicolas Kirsch

Published:30.12.23 — On Tuesday, 9/1/24, Nicolas Kirsch will give the talk "A Distributed Game Theoretic Approach for Optimal Battery Use in an Energy Community". The seminar will start at 11h00 in ME C2 405. 

New PhD student

Published:18.12.23 — Welcome to Gabriel Vallat, who will join the Sycamore lab fro the first of December as a doctoral student.

Talk by Sanjay Chandrasekaran on optimizing recommender systems

Published:29.11.23 — On 1/12/23, Sanjay Chandrasekaran will give the talk "Optimizing recommender systems for social networks: A control-theoretic approach". The seminar will start at 11h00 in ME C2 405. 

New Paper Published in Automatica

Published:24.11.23 — Congratulations to Philippe Schuchert and Vaibhav Gupta for their paper entitled "Data-driven fixed-structure frequency-based H2 and H∞ controller design" accepted for publication in Automatica.

New PhD student

Published:24.11.23 — Fenglong Song recently joined LA. He will work on the combination of MPC and ML, as well as efficient optimization methods for optimal control toward his PhD with Prof. Colin Jones.

New PhD student

Published:24.11.23 — Wenbin Wang recently joined LA. He will work on the advanced learning/optimization techniques for human-centered control with applications to building systems toward his PhD with Prof. Colin Jones.

Welcome to Riccardo Cescon

Published:20.11.23 — Riccardo has recently joined the DECODE group as a Ph.D. student. Welcome on board!

New PhD student

Published:05.09.23 — Welcome to Mert Erkul. He will join the Sycamore lab from the first of September.

New PhD Thesis

Published:28.06.23 — The public defence of Yingzhao Lian's Thesis entitled "Data-driven Methods for Control: from Linear to Lifting" (Thesis 9798) was held on Friday 23rd, June 2023.

Reda Ouhamma joined the SYCAMORE Group

Published:28.06.23 — Welcome to Reda Ouhamma, who will join the Sycamore lab from the first of June as a Scientist.

Best PhD paper award at ECC23

Published:28.06.23 — BaiweiGuo received the Best PhD paper.

Nathan Powell joined the DDMAC Group

Published:20.06.23 — Nathan Powell started his work as a post doctoral fellow from 15th of June in DDMAC group. Welcome to LA !

New PhD Thesis

Published:16.05.23 — The public defence of Emilio Maddalena's Thesis entitled "Machine Learning Methods for Robust Uncertainty Quantification and Controller Approximation" was held on Thursday 11th, May 2023.

Top cited article in Optimal Control Applications and Methods

Published:21.02.23 — The article "Supervised model predictive control of large-scale electricity networks via clustering methods" is among the top cited papers in OCAM from 1 Jan 2021 to 15 Dec 2022. A special thanks to Pascal Klaus, a student of our group who developed the core research during his master project at the Politecnico di Milano.

Leonardo Massai begins his PostDoc in DECODE

Published:19.02.23 — Welcome to Leonardo Massai, who recently joined the DECODE group from Politecnico di Torino. Leonardo will strengthen our research on distributed control based on neural networks and machine learning.

Welcome to Massimiliano d'Angelo!

Published:24.01.23 — Massimiliano, currently Postdoc researcher at Sapienza University of Rome, is visiting the DECODE group for two months bringing his expertise on dynamic systems and probability for studying the properties of neural ODES.

Danilo Saccani joins the DECODE group

Published:11.01.23 — Danilo Saccani joined the group at the beginning of January 2023, bringing his expertise on distributed control, UAVs and MPC. Danilo is also a member of the NCCR automation. Welcome to DECODE!

2022 Best paper award IEEE Transactions of Control of Network Systems

Published:05.01.23 — Best Journal Paper Award for Luca Furieri and Maryam Kamgarpour 

2023 Award of the IEEE CSS Swiss Chapter

Published:20.12.22 — We are happy to announce the second edition of the IEEE Control Systems Society – Swiss Chapter Young Author Best Journal Paper Award The award, sponsored by MathWorks, addresses young researchers who have recently published papers in a society journal.  Let us highlight that, to be eligible for the award, candidates must be members of the IEEE-CSS Swiss Chapter at the time of the nomination. The other main requirements are that: the candidate must be 35 years old or younger on January 1st, 2023; the candidate must be one of the authors of the paper. The nomination deadline is March 31st, 2023. The three finalists and the recipient of the prize will be announced by the end of May 2023. Further details can be found in this call, also available on the Swiss CSS website.

New PhD Student

Published:13.12.22 — Mert Eyuboglu has joined the Data-Driven Modelling and Control group since the first of December 2022 as a PhD student. In the framework of NCCR automation he will work on Robust Data Driven Control methods.

New PhD Thesis

Published:31.10.22 — The public defence of the thesis of Seyed Sohail Madani entitled "Data-Driven Power Electronic Converter Control Design in Power System Application" was held on Friday 28th, November 2022.

Top cited paper at the Control Engineering Practice journal

Published:17.10.22 — The paper entitled "Data-driven methods for building control — A review and promising future directions", authored by Emilio T. Maddalena, Yingzhao Lian, and Colin N. Jones reached the "Top cited" category in the Control Engineering Practice journal!

New PhD Student

Published:06.09.22 — Zhaoming Qin has joined the Data-Driven Modelling and Control group since the first of September 2022 as a PhD student. He will develop direct data-driven fixed structure control design methods using the behavioural approach.

Luca Furieri awarded SNSF Ambizione grant: congratulations!

Published:31.08.22 — Dr. Luca Furieri at EPFL’s School of Mechanical Engineering has been awarded an Ambizione grant for research at the intersection of machine learning and control theory. Congratulations on this achievement from all members of DECODE!

New PhD Thesis

Published:17.06.22 — Harsh successfully passed his PhD exam (in front of people this time) on June 17th, 2022.  EPFL Thesis 10433: Optimization Methods for Control: From Embedded Programmable Hardware to Data-Driven Process Optimization by Harsh Ambarishkumar Shukla

Best Paper Award at the 2022 American Control Conference

Published:14.06.22 — VABO: Violation-Aware Bayesian Optimization for Closed-Loop Performance Optimization with Unmodeled Constraints

New PhD Thesis

Published:19.05.22 — Petr successfully passed his PhD exam on May 19th, 2022.  EPFL Thesis 7699: Real-Time Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for Fast Mechatronic Systems, by Petr LISTOV Thesis Directors: Colin Jones

New postdoc

Published:07.09.21 — Matteo Tacchi recently joined LA3 as a postdoc. Matteo will work on controlling smart buildings and power grids using optimization, functional analysis and data science.

New postdoc

Published:15.03.21 — Arman Sharifi Kolarijani recently joined LA as a postdoc, bringing his expertise to the NCCR Automation project.

New PhD Thesis

Published:19.02.21 — Harsh successfully passed his PhD exam on February 19th, 2021.  EPFL Thesis 10433: Optimization Methods for Control: From Embedded Programmable Hardware to Data-Driven Process Optimization, by Harsh Ambarishkumar SHUKLA. Thesis Directors: Colin Jones

ETHZ-EPFL Summer School on data-driven control

Published:19.02.21 — Summer school on "Foundations and mathematical guarantees of data-driven control", June 9th-15th, 2021, ETHZ, Zurich.

New PhD Student

Published:03.02.21 — Muhammad Zakwan recently joined LA – DECODE. He will develop new algorithms inspired by control theory for designing reliable deep networks toward his PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate

New PhD student

Published:03.02.21 — Philippe Schuchert recently joined LA. He will work on data-driven control with application to mechanical systems toward his PhD with Prof. Alireza Karimi.

New PhD student

Published:04.11.20 — Andrea Martin recently joined LA. He will work on stochastic system modelling for data-based control toward his PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate. His work is supported by the NCCR Automation.

New postdoc

Published:04.11.20 — Luca Furieri recently joined LA as a postdoc, bringing his expertise on distributed control systems. His work is supported by the NCCR Automation.

New PhD student

Published:04.11.20 — Mahrokh Ghoddousi recently joined LA. She will work on the interface between distributed learning and control toward her PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate. Her work is supported by the NCCR Automation.

New PhD student

Published:04.11.20 — Jean-Sébastien recently joined LA. He will work on data-based algorithms for making electric networks greener and smarter toward his PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate. His work is supported by the NCCR Automation.

New PhD student

Published:19.10.20 — Roland Schwan recently joined LA. He will work on control and optimisation toward his PhD with Prof. Colin Jones.

New LA postdoc

Published:05.10.20 — Yuning Jiang recently joined LA as a post-doc. He will work on control and optimization with Prof. Colin Jones.

Embedded Explicit MPC @ 10 kHz for a Power Converter

Published:30.07.20 — Model Predictive Control (MPC) can be used to control a dc-dc power converter at a 10 kHz rate deployed on an inexpensive 80 MHz microcontroller.

See-you-Outside LA@LauzHack

Published:09.04.20 — The Laboratoire d'Automatique participate to the 2020 LauzHack online hackathon dedicated to tackling the coronavirus crisis and proposed the See-you-outide visual tool to simulate the consequences of different policies adopted in releasing the lockdown, and possibly to compute an optimal policy given a scenario and some target.

LA is member of a new NCCR

Published:10.01.20 — LA participates to newly funded National Center of Competence in Research on "Dependable Ubiquitous Automation"

New PhD student

Published:12.12.19 — Manuel Koch recently joined the LA. He will conduct his PhD on model predictive control of buildings under supervision of Prof. Colin Jones. 

New PhD student

Published:19.11.19 — Paul Scharnhorst recently joined the LA. He will work on data-driven control, more specifically on reinforcement learning for building control toward his PhD with Prof. Colin Jones and CSEM.

Hilti Mechatronic Prize 2019

Published:29.10.19 — Antoine Laurens has won the Hilti Mechatronic Prize of 2019 for his Master project entitled “Automatic Fine Tuning of Robust Controllers” in collaboration with ETEL and supervised by Dr. Alireza Karimi.

New PhD Thesis

Published:28.10.19 — Ivan successfully passed his PhD exam on October 25th, 2019. EPFL Thesis 9564: Low-Complexity Optimization-Based Control: Design, Methods and Applications by Ivan Pejcic. Thesis Directors: Colin Jones

New PhD Thesis

Published:02.09.19 — Sanket successfully passed his PhD exam on September 2nd, 2019. EPFL Thesis 9524: Kernel methods and Model predictive approaches for Learning and Control by Sanket Sanjay Diwale. Thesis Directors: Colin Jones

EPFL students design a rocket from scratch

Published:16.08.19 — Summer series–Student projects. Students on this year’s EPFL Rocket Team designed a rocket that’s three meters tall and weighs 23 kilograms. Dubbed Eiger, it took home fifth place in its category at the 2019 Spaceport America Cup.

Smart greenhouses let you grow vegetables in your own apartment

Published:08.08.19 — Two EPFL Master’s students have co-developed a technology for growing a small garden right in your home or office. They launched a startup to market their smart indoor greenhouses and installed prototypes at EPFL with the support of the Act for Change LAB platform (EPFL Sustainability).

New LA postdoc

Published:04.07.19 — Liang Xu recently joined LA. He will work on reinforcement learning with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate.

IEEE 1876 Standard

Published:04.07.19 — IEEE 1876 – Standard for Networked Smart Learning Objects for Online Laboratories has been released.

New PhD student

Published:01.07.19 — Baiwei Guo recently joined the LA. He will work on reinforcement learning toward his PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate.

New PhD student

Published:17.06.19 — Clara Galimberti recently joined the LA. She will work on reinforcement learning toward her PhD with Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate.

New PhD Thesis

Published:27.05.19 — Tafarel successfully passed his PhD exam on May 15th, 2019. EPFL Thesis 9276: Real-Time Optimization of Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Systems – Methodology and Implementation by Tafarel DE AVILA FERREIRA. Thesis Directors: Dominique Bonvin & Timm Faulwasser

New LA postdoc

Published:27.05.19 — Dongdong Zheng recently joined LA. He will work on data-driven identification and control of electrical grids in the framework of the SCCER-FURIES project.

New PhD Thesis

Published:27.05.19 — Martand successfully passed his PhD exam on October 19th, 2018. EPFL Thesis 8803: On enforcing the necessary conditions of optimality under plant-model mismatch – what to measure and what to adapt? by Martand SINGHAL. Thesis Directors: Dominique Bonvin & Timm Faulwasser

New PhD Thesis

Published:26.01.19 — Luca successfully passed his PhD exam on January 25th, 2019. EPFL Thesis 9264: Model-based predictive control methods for distributed energy resources in smart grids by Luca Fabietti. Thesis Directors: Colin Jones

Energy and Buildings Best Research Paper Award 2008-2017

Published:14.01.19 — Frauke Oldewurtel, Alessandra Parisio, Colin N. Jones, Dimitrios Gyalistras, Markus Gwerder, Vanessa Stauch, Beat Lehmann, Manfred Morari won the Best Research Paper Award for 1998-2017 from journal Energy and Buildings.

New PhD Thesis

Published:26.01.19 — Predrag successfully passed his PhD exam on September 21th, 2018. EPFL Thesis 257129: Real-Time Optimization of Interconnected Systems via Modifier Adaptation, with Application to Gas-Compressor Stations by Predrag Milosavljevic; Thesis Directors: Dominique Bonvin & Timm Faulwasser

New PhD Thesis

Published:26.01.19 — Francisco successfully passed his PhD exam on November 16th, 2018. EPFL Thesis 257129: Distributed State Estimation and Cooperative Path-Following Under Communication Constraints by Fernandes Castro Rego, Francisco; Thesis Directors: Colin Jones & António Manuel dos Santos Pascoal

New PhD Thesis

Published:28.01.19 — Ehsan successfully passed his PhD exam on June 29th, 2018. EPFL Thesis 8658: A Closed-Loop EMG-Assisted Shoulder Model by Ehsan Sarshari. Thesis Directors: Dominique Pioletti & Philippe Mullhaupt

New PhD Thesis

Published:26.01.19 — Altug successfully passed his PhD exam on August 29th, 2018. EPFL Thesis 8814: Coordinated Optimization and Control for Smart Grids by Altug Bitlislioglu. Thesis Directors: Colin Jones

Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate plenary speaker at the 6th IFAC

Published:13.12.18 — Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate plenary speaker at the 6th IFAC international Conference on Nonlinear Model Predictive Control

Dr. Alireza Karimi awarded an Innosuisse grant

Published:13.12.18 — Optimal Data-Driven Control Tuning for High Precision Machines

Prof Colin Jones awarded an ERC Starting Grant

Published:13.12.18 — BuildNet: Smart Building Networks

Prof. Colin Jones awarded an FNS grant

Published:13.12.18 — Risk Aware Data Driven Demand Response (RISK) Application details for PhD and PostDoc positions for this projet

Prof. Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate awarded an FNS grant

Published:13.12.18 — CoFlex – Scalable Control for Flexible Microgrids

Prof. Bonvin elected Fellow of the IFAC

Published:13.12.18 — Prof. Bonvin has recently been elected a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control

A mere ball, a very real mathematical challenge

Published:04.09.14 — Summer Series – student work (9): To what extent could we predict the number on which a roulette ball is going to fall? Philippe Paccaud, micro-technology student, tackled this complex issue in his master's thesis. In the end, there was no miracle equation, but instead a fair dose of ingenuity.

New textbook on Adaptive Control by Dr. Alireza Karimi

Published:08.12.11 — Dr. Alireza Karimi has published the 2nd edition of his book "Adaptive Control. Algorithms, Analysis and Applications" by Landau, I.D., Lozano, R., M'Saad, M., Karimi, A. in the Springer Communications and Control Engineering series

LA welcomes Simone Formentin

Published:08.12.11 — LA welcomes a new postdoctoral researcher, Simone Formentin, who is joining the group to work on the project "Data-driven controller tuning" with Dr. Alireza Karimi.

Prof Colin Jones to give semi-plenary at NMPC'12

Published:08.12.11 — Prof Colin Jones will give a semi-plenary at the IFAC Conference on Nonlinear Model Predictive Control (NMPC'12) on August 23 – 27, 2012. Conference details and call for papers here

Dr. Melanie Zeilinger awarded the ETH medal

Published:14.11.11 — Melanie Zeilinger has been awarded with the ETH medal by ETH Zurich for her doctoral thesis entitled "Real-time Model Predictive Control".

Two PhDs sought for optimal control of smart buildings

Published:05.09.11 — The Laboratoire d'Automatique has been granted a three year project to study energy-efficient control of the interaction between next generation buildings, electric vehicles and the smart grid. We are seeking two exceptional, self-motivated PhD students to study this important topic. Please see the Open positions page for details.