The research proposal “Contracts for Control System Design (COCOS)” of Bart Besselink will receive 2 Mio € funding by the European Research Council (ERC). The ERC Consolidator Grant is a prestigious research funding program to support researchers who are in the early stages of their independent research careers and have demonstrated significant potential for conducting high-quality research. Bart proposes a new approach for control system design based on contracts, inspired by ideas from software design in computer science. He will develop a contract theory for control system design that includes techniques for the automatic design of component contracts aimed at optimizing system-level performance, and control design for contract satisfaction. The practical relevance of the theory will be tested by case studies in high-tech manufacturing systems and autonomous vehicles, and supported by efficient computational tools.
Category: People
Michele Cucuzzella joins DPTA group as Associate Professor
Dr. Michele Cucuzzella has recently joined the Discrete Technology & Production Automation (DTPA) group within ENTEG as associate professor. His research will mainly focus on the design and analysis of nonlinear control systems with application to the energy domain and smart complex systems such as power systems, district heating, etc., contributing to the development of a more efficient and sustainable energy system.
Michele received the M.Sc. degree (Hons.) in Electrical Engineering and the Ph.D. degree in Systems and Control from the University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy, in 2014 and 2018, respectively. From 2021 to 2024 he was Assistant Professor of Systems and Control at the University of Pavia and guest Researcher at the University of Groningen. Since 2023 he is visiting Associate Professor at the Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan. From 2017 until 2020, he was a Postdoc at the University of Groningen.
Bayu Jayawardhana new scientific director of DISC
Bayu Jayawardhana is appointed as of 1 January 2024 as scientific director of Dutch Institute of Systems and Control (DISC), the interuniversity research institute and graduate school that unites all university groups in the Netherlands that are active in systems and control theory and engineering. He succeeds Henk Nijmeijer (emeritus TU Eindhoven) who has himself been a graduate of the University of Groningen. Furthermore, Stephan Trenn has replaced Jacquelien Scherpen as the University of Groningen representative at the DISC board.
Jacquelien Scherpen new rector of the RUG
Our colleague Prof. Jacquelien Scherpen will be the new Rector Magnificus of the University of Groningen. The appointment which start at 1 September 2023 will be for four years.
Jacquelien Scherpen first FSE Director of Engineering
The Faculty Board of the Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) has decided to create the position of FSE Director of Engineering. As from July 1, 2022, Prof. Jacquelien Scherpen will be the first to hold this position. The main responsibilities of the FSE Director of Engineering will be to strengthen research collaboration in the area of engineering in the full width of the faculty, to set up new collaborations between FSE and the engineering industry, and to represent FSE in regional and national initiatives and discussions on engineering. Many of these activities are conducted through the Groningen Engineering Center, which is led by the FSE Director of Engineering.
Ming Cao appointed director of Jantina Tammes School
The Board of the University has appointed Ming Cao as Director of the Jantina Tammes School, the interdisciplinary platform that focuses on digital innovation, artificial intelligence, and technological progress. The School represents an important new instrument for interacting with, and contributing to, society. It will provide a place where the various academic disciplines can meet and join forces to conduct research projects, teach, and generally smooth the way for dialogue with and about society. Ming Cao, Professor of Networks and Robotics, is looking forward to stimulating interdisciplinary collaboration. ‘The Jantina Tammes School brings together all of the interested parties in the up-and-coming digital society, allowing them to get the maximum benefits from and make the maximum contribution to digitization, digital technology, and artificial intelligence. We are preparing our students, staff, and partners for a promising, but challenging, future.’
Henk van Waarde joins SCO group as Assistant Professor
Dr. Henk van Waarde has joined the SCO group as Assistant Professor for Data-driven control in January 2022. Henk received his PhD degree (cum laude) in Systems and Control from the University of Groningen in 2020 and was awarded with the 2020 DISC Best PhD Thesis. During his PhD he was a visiting researcher at University of Washington, Seattle, in the lab of Mehran Mesbahi. After that he was a postdoctoral researcher, first at Cambridge University under supervision of Rodolphe Sepulchre, and later at ETH Zürich where he worked with Florian Dörfler. His research interests are in data-driven modeling and control as well as applications to networked systems and neuronal dynamics.
IEEE LCSS outstanding paper award
Henk van Waarde, Claudio De Persis, Kanat Camlibel and Pietro Tesi have received the 2021 IEEE Control Systems Letters Outstanding Paper Award for their paper “Willems’ Fundamental Lemma for State-space Systems and its Extension to Multiple Datasets”, published in the IEEE Control Systems letters. The annual award recognizes an outstanding paper published in the letters in the preceding two calendar years. The selection criteria are originality, potential impact on the theoretical foundations of control, importance and practical significance in applications, and clarity.
Ming Cao awarded IEEE Fellow
Prof. Ming Cao has been elevated by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) to the grade of IEEE Fellow for his contributions to multi-agent control systems for sensor, robotic and social networks.
Becoming an IEEE Fellow is IEEE’s highest honor. Yearly, a select group of IEEE members is recognized as IEEE fellow. The institute awards the honour to less than 0.1 percent of its members. The Fellow title is recognized by the international engineering community as a prestigious honour and achievement. The grade of Fellow is being awarded since 1912.
The total number of IEEE Fellows in the Jan C. Willems center now stands at six: Jan C. Willems† (awarded 1980), Ruth Curtain† (awarded 1991), Arjan van der Schaft (awarded 2002), Harry Trentelman (awarded 2015), Jaqcuelien Scherpen (awarded 2021) and Ming Cao (2022).
Jacquelien Scherpen elevated to IEEE fellow
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has elevated Prof. Jacquelien Scherpen of the Engineering and Technology institute Groningen (ENTEG) to the grade of IEEE Fellow for her contributions to nonlinear model reduction and passivity-based control.