Coffee and Control

In this episode I had a wonderful time talking with Dr Hamed Rahimi Nohooji and all about control of robotics! We discussed dealing with constraints using barrier Lyapunov functions, control considerations in human-robot interaction, control objectives for soft robotics, co-design of soft robots, wind turbine control, and a whole lot more!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/cDetOw

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References:

Hamed Rahimi Nohooji: https://www.uni.lu/snt-en/people/hamed-rahimi-nohooji/

Path planning of manipulators with flexible links: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.5772/10524

Flexible robotics review: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01691864.2013.839079

Moving obstacle avoidance paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00707-012-0799-5

PhD thesis: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/FBl2X0

Adaptive control for robots with joint-space constraints: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0888327018301614
Control for robots with velocity constraints: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016003217306269

CLF and CBF reviews: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050921019128

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8796030

Original progressive BLF paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2411.06288

Learning progressive BLFs: [Under review]

Romeo Ortega inControl episode: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/s5WEDs

NNs for exoskeletons review: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0825/14/1/16

Original paper by Nussbaum: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/016769118390021X

Chen Automatica Nussbaum function paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109818306423

Hamed’s Nussbaum function paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0020025518310417

Nussbaum functions for cyber attacks: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rnc.4749

Nussbaum functions for wind turbine control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8403101

Neural impedance control paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231218301607

Hamed’s assist-as-needed control paper: https://www.araa.asn.au/acra/acra2016/papers/pap114s1.pdf

Wolbrecht paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4451797/

Shared autonomy in human-robot interaction: [Under review]

Adaptive PID control paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S001600321930955X

Nussbaum function-based PID control: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/document/10566270

Adapting PID gains using reinforcement learning: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1568494623011717

Wind turbine control paper: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/24/4712

Hamed’s hierarchical optimisation framework: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11020848

Model-based soft robotic control review: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10136424

Cossimo della Santina inControl episode: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/Nj9YFu

Paper on soft robotic co-design: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.03761

Gioele Zardini episode of co-design: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3upRUgZBy79tqihMy9BDsJ

Review of soft robots in space: https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aisy.202400785

Using physics-informed neural ODEs to control soft robots: https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105050598202

Experimental control of soft robots using PINNs: https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105021529003

Sustainable interaction for soft robotics: https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3776734.3794544

IFAC cosserat rod paper: [Accepted]

CSL paper on reachability constrained control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=11664472

In this episode I got to chat with the incredibly wonderful Dr Keyan Miao about the fascinating work she’s done on neural ODEs. We discuss applying control theoretic tools to optimise neural ODEs, as well as their use for both controller and observer design. And in case that wasn’t already enough we also touch on dissipativity, Koopman operators, and reinforcement learning!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iI0swQSnNEqgGQgf7og8udRV3IBCXbbfEkLFlolGxEU/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

Join the live recording on 20th October 2026!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S9X66_Wfzc

( 9:30 PDT, 12:30 ET, 16:30 UTC, 17:30 BST, 18:30 CEST)

References

Keyan Miao: https://kymiao.github.io/

Richard Vinter: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/r.vinter

QianXiao Li from NUS and Wei-Nan Er from Princeton: https://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume18/17-653/17-653.pdf

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40687-018-0172-y

https://ems.press/journals/jems/articles/5404458

Book on control theory/ philosophy: https://apac.ee.kntu.ac.ir/publications/books/control-systems-a-historical-and-philosophical-perspective/

Control theory/ philosophy article: https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/control-theory-philosophical-lens-language

NCCR automation fellowship: https://nccr-automation.ch/research-fellowship

Andreas Krause: https://las.inf.ethz.ch/krausea

Steve Brunton ResNet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1UsKanMatM&t=911s

Original neural ODE paper: https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2018/file/69386f6bb1dfed68692a24c8686939b9-Paper.pdf

Speeding up Neural ODE training and inference: https://proceedings.mlr.press/v235/miao24a.html

Neural ODE review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950550X25000263

Review of Neural ODEs in biomedical engineering: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-bioeng-110824-124907

Neural ODEs for observer design paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.00866

Non-linear observer review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367578821000948

Neural ODEs for control design papers: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17139

Survey on CBFs: https://coogan.ece.gatech.edu/papers/pdf/amesecc19.pdf

Koopman operator paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.07294

Combining neural ODEs with RL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231225007131

Neural ODE dissipativity paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109826003043

Papers on Neural Network Verification: HuanZhang (UIUC)

https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2018/file/d04863f100d59b3eb688a11f95b0ae60-Paper.pdf

https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2021/file/fac7fead96dafceaf80c1daffeae82a4-Paper.pdf

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.26577

Papers on Direct NN parameterization: Ian Manchester (USyd)and Patricia Pauli (Eindhoven)

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9319198

https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22258

https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/wang23v.html

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9867842

Ricky Chen: https://rtqichen.github.io/

Flow matching paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02747

Antonis Papachristoudolou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulou

Carmen Amo Alonso episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/393QBgVgsQwgh4wKj1bcLy

In this episode I take you with me to the 2026 IFAC World Congress in Busan, South Korea, where I got to talk to a bunch of wonderful control researchers about their work. We cover a wide range of fascinating research areas, including observer design for transportation, event-triggered control, consensus control, extremum-seeking, robotic manipulation, control education and outreach, and a whole lot more!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XE4krcWk6KgQjUUtgxKejmsTBYTermPeL9e3uVOnRJQ/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Workshops

Arun Tangirala: https://arunkt-dev.github.io/

Prem Jagadeesan: https://www.amrita.edu/faculty/prem-jagadeesan/

Paper on defining sloppiness: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282609

Tom Oomen: https://toomen.eu/

Monday

inControl podcast: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/

Selsabil Bougherara: https://www.uphf.fr/lamih/membres/bougherara_selsabil

Shengya Meng: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shengya-meng-1b299a294/

Laura Albert: https://engineering.wisc.edu/directory/profile/laura-albert/

Tuesday

Ying Tan: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/28203-ying-tan

Miroslav Krstic inControl interview: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/16954129-ep31-miroslav-krstic-nonlinear-adaptive-control-pdes-delays-extremum-seeking-safety-neural-operators-for-control

ESC paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4177053

Wednesday

Frank Park: https://me.snu.ac.kr/en/snu__professor/park-frank-chongwoo/

Talk on geometric methods for robot learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIKZzlomGIY

Pritesh Patel: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/667tf7/doctor-pritesh-patel

Paper on stability of adaptive control of switched systems: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751570X25000457

Interview with Brian Douglas: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHal

Nikwist: https://www.nikwist.be/

David Tinoco: https://dtinas10.github.io/homepage/

Quantum control podcast episodes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t577mI6iCh6ypd40nMxBQ

https://open.spotify.com/episode/31XLcllhy4XK7gQ9NnDGfz

Olaf Stursberg: https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/sections/control-and-system-theory/team/prof-stursberg.html

Sudhanshu Shekhar: https://www.iitk.ac.in/sudhanshu-shekhar

Sonia Martinez: http://muro.ucsd.edu/sonia/

Overview of coverage control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.13890

Paper on optimal transport: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8619816

ThursdayArkadeep Saha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkadeep-saha-1b1a84252/

Steve Brunton SINDy videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSCa78TIldg

Open source soft robotic platform: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5609765

https://github.com/ReshapeTUe/Soft-Legged-Wheel-Testbed

Nicolás Faedo: https://www.polito.it/en/staff?p=nicolas.faedo

Emilia Fushimi: http://www.gca.ing.unlp.edu.ar/?q=fushimi

Tore Gude: https://www.ntnu.no/ansatte/tore.gude

Friday

Dan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobson/profileview/edit/

Cristina Stoica: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/en/u/stoica-cristina/

IFAC youTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ifacyoutube3132

OosCar non-linear control video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaOk003CiqA

Art and control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awx-LOdbNH8

Rebecca Thien: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/en/u/thien-rebbecca-tze-yean/Kuberknots podcast: https://kuberknots.com/

IET travel support: https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/awards-prizes-and-scholarships/travel-awards

In this episode I had the pleasure of talking to the fantastic Francesca Boem about her work on monitoring networked systems, approaches to detecting faults and cyber attacks, as well as her new start-up helping to ensure the security of wireless health-tech devices!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ttf7raapfDW4_aj3mnD8mSoy704d9T9BLnJk9QXbLqM/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

Drop me an email if you’re attending IFAC WC: L.Hodgins@soton.ac.uk

References

Francesca Boem: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/65682-francesca-boem

PhD thesis: https://www.openstarts.units.it/entities/publication/c9e28dd2-a9f3-4deb-bfb9-886a8f5d1661/details

Thomas Parisini: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/t.parisini

Distributed fault detection paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6580380

Detectability of cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8264562

Cyber attack detection for microgrids: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9054955

Detecting covert cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9104026

Detecting replay attacks: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.00737

Fault-tolerant control/ active fault diagnosis: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8700304

CONTROL 2026 episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MTAxQo4PlTC0zo7OcYRB4

BLE vulnerabilities paper: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212293/1/ISCAS_2025_V4.pdf

GiancarloFerrari Tricate: https://people.epfl.ch/giancarlo.ferraritrecate

KIOS centre: https://www.kios.ucy.ac.cy/

In this episode I have the pleasure of attending the CONTROL2026 conference, and bring you along with me! This conference was the largest gatheringof control engineers in the UK recent years, co-organized by the ACE network and UK Automatic Control Council (UKACC). Join me as I explore the ACE network and some of the fabulous control engineering research taking place across theUK!

Join the ACE network!: ⁠https://ukcontrol.org/join-ace

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1131VDAX37W9GOJ87c0PZqXt83VMds1rAdapr1HdgN3Q/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Control 2026: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/

Conference proceedings: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Control-2026-Proceedings-Booklet.pdf

ACE network: https://ukcontrol.org/

UKACC: https://ukacc.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/

IFAC: https://www.ifac-control.org/

Pramod Khargonekar: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/khargonekar/

Slides from his talk: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/yaf5rk

Norbert Weiner: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norbert-Wiener

Automony vs automation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-020-01004-z

InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/11513053-ep6-norbert-wiener-and-cybernetics

Macy Conference proceedings: http://cybernetic-bookshelf.org:8083/book/2636Dartmouth conference: https://opendigitalai.org/en/the-dartmouth-conference-1956-the-big-bang-of-ai/

John McCarthy: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-McCarthy

Daniel Coca: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/danielcoca.html

EPSRC: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/

Interview with Andy Lawrence: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BvPXw3YyoqdsvbQ573OF1

William Heath: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/staff/scse/william-heath-680178/en

Alessandro Astolfi: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.astolfi

Antonis Papachristodoulou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulou

Stephen Duncan: https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-stephen-duncan/

Francesca Boem: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/f.boem

EDI survey: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/ahijky

Mentorship scheme sign-up form: https://ukcontrol.org/ace-network-mentor-scheme

ACE position paper: https://ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ACE-Position-Paper.pdf

Network + survey: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=yRJQnBa2wkSpF2aBT74-hyrBNzE3vqFAgmzn8RVGrRVUM1pNMEZFREExUTBJQ1dRUkJTNFRGNEJPVi4u&route=shorturl

Claude shutdown: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/claude-fable-5-disabled-us-government/

Brian Douglas podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHal

Chao Gu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chao-gu-609073220/

Petri nets: http://www.petri-net.de/

AEGEAN: https://en.about.aegeanair.com/company/fleet/

Liam Hallinan: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LmZyKIIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Salma Iraky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmassabry/

TERRA github: https://github.com/sssabry/tera

Anton Selivanov: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anton-Selivanov

Allan Nascimento (Multi-horizon MPC author): https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/author/867072138905292

Miroslav Krstic: https://flyingv.ucsd.edu/

Neural operators: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08481

Mohammad Adballah: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/schools/meme/staff/phd/mohammad-abdallah/

Luke Rickard: https://www.lukerickard.co.uk/

Will Rohde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wfmrohde/

Dan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobson

Anthony Rossiter: https://ieeecss.org/contact/anthony-rossiter

Control101 toolbox: https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/130439-control-101-toolbox

In the second part of my interview with the incredibly talented Carmen Amo Alonso we discuss her fascinating work at the intersection of AI and control, examining topics such as:

Using tools from control theory to analyse and design AI systems

Controlling large language models to guarantee a particular sentiment for their output

Using vision-language-action models to control robots using language

and a whole lot more!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ph1yaQuV_ybRM8h9rU5Uvmz9eB5Ar4HVhcBnc7b7zJ8/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

The architecture of language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApC0AWWTajU

Diffusion models: https://the-principles-of-diffusion-models.github.io/

Skip connection paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10609

Review of state-space models in AI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16899

3 Blue 1 Brown video on transformers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZofJX0v4M

Dynamical systems framework paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15731

Designing sequence models: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09389v1

Controlling LLM output: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15454v3

Controllability of LLMs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05637v1

Vision-language-action model paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05487v1

NARRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.10762

DEMONSTRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12855v1

Domitilla Del Vecchio: https://meche.mit.edu/people/faculty/ddv@MIT.EDU

Biomolecular feedback systems book: https://www.fbswiki.org/wiki/index.php/Biomolecular_Feedback_Systems

Mathias Foo episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1G3vhRoeenTWRrEwauT0ne

inControl episodes: Mario di Bernardo: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/19167890-ep44-mario-di-bernardo-from-circuits-to-cells-and-swarms-control-meets-complexity

Mustafa Khammash: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12648716-ep11-mustafa-khammash-cybergenetics

John Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyle

InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12841020-ep12-john-doyle-part-i-a-pioneer-s-guide-to-robust-control-the-past-present-and-future

Jerome Sieber: https://jerome.sieber.io/

In this episode I talk to the very wonderful Carmen Amo Alonso about her (award-winning) PhD research on distributed and localised MPC. We also cover super interesting and useful concepts such as system-level synthesis and ADMM, as well as her internship working at Tesla!

You can access the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SErvHtKoE18QzelHDUh9im6AeG3zKPWZLRoNGx5BUyg/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Carmen: https://camoalon.github.io/

JPL: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

John Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyle

Feedback in biological control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9867859

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9867794

Thesis: https://thesis.caltech.edu/15262/3/Carmen_Amo_Alonso_Caltech_PhD_Thesis.pdf

Distributed localised MPC paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9939038

Professor Melanie Zeilinger: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/melanie-zeilinger-0

SLS for robust nonlinear optimal control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.04943

Professor Nikolai Matni: https://nikolaimatni.github.io/

System-level synthesis tutorial: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.01634

YouTube videos on DLMPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF2Wbriy2Zg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhtuGZp8QM0&t=302s

ADMM survey paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.03700

Professor James Anderson: https://www.columbia.edu/~ja3451/

Data-driven DLMCP: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9772975

Willems fundamental lemma: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/262195/1/PersistencyExcitation.pdf

Paolo Rapisarda episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/076dEw28abILPAbT5qA6aw

Implementing DLMP on GPUs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9831839

Clubes de Ciencia: Mexico: https://clubesdeciencia.mx/

Peru: https://clubesdecienciaperu.org/

Terry Sejnowski: https://biology.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/tsejnowski

In this episode I talk to three lovely researchers all about journal clubs (AKA reading groups) – what they are, why you might want to be part of one, and how to start your own! I also give some insights from my own experiences running a (control-related) journal club, as well as a summary of three of my favourite papers we’ve read.

You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19i4egf_2KEWqkp94ZW3QjRTH8PeAZz6yEix8zoSfx4k/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Al Edwards: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/62mm7y/doctor-al-edwards

Antonia Marcu: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xk5lz/miss-antonia-marcu

Convexification for soft landing optimal control paper: http://www.larsblackmore.com/iee_tcst13.pdf

Improved soft robotic parameterisation paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8961972

KKL observer synthesis paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11655

In this episode I got the opportunity to sit down with the fantastic Brian Douglas and talk about what it's like to be a control engineer in industry, common misconceptions he had, and advice for current students. We also discussed his YouTube channel, as well as a few more technical aspects of projects he's been involved with over the years!

You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gAyIAgd3RzVSSDmJ-As0gzJVekJG3IqU2L-1zJhuKYs/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Brian Douglas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-douglas-505b7175/

Engineering Media (Brian’s company): https://engineeringmedia.com/

Original YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq0imsn84ShAe9PBOFnoIrg

MATLAB YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MATLAB

Co-design podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3upRUgZBy79tqihMy9BDsJ

Veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium

Smarter every day: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA

Mark Rober: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRober

Formal verification video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kINfn-ZYiLY

InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/15223020-ep24-brian-douglas-boeing-control-videos-resourcium-map-of-control-theory-cartoons-mathworks

In this episode I got to speak with the fantastic Gioele Zardini about his work on the co-design framework, a fascinating framework used to optimise large interconnected systems. We cover the theoretical background of this, intuition behind it, and a ton of different applications where it’s useful, as well as discussing exciting open questions in the field!

Find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XPZr9jP4Lphskkw-SiM8h-x1kp7LROqZ243S6zA7EsY/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Gioele Zardini: https://zardini.mit.edu/

PhD thesis: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/entities/publication/d7c08dd5-bf96-4c1f-a744-5e751f0f44a5

PhDs in control interview: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10555200

Emilio Frazzoli: https://idsc.ethz.ch/research-frazzoli/people/person-detail.frazzoli.html

Andrea Cenci: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/andrea-censi

Marco Pavone: https://profiles.stanford.edu/marco-pavone

NuTonomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuTonomy(current site: https://motional.com/)

Brad Nelson: https://msrl.ethz.ch/the-lab/team/Brad_Nelson.html

David Sacramuza: https://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/people_scaramuzza.html

Yujun Huang: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/yujun-huang/

Uncertainty in co-design paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.02766

Background refs on category theory:

David Spivak: https://dspivak.net/
Brendan Fong: http://brendanfong.com/

Gioele's work in progress book: https://storage.zuper.ai/sync/ACT4E/ACT4E/alphubel-prod/build/last/build-public/ACT4E-public.pdf

YouTube talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmAz6fEPa2o

Gioele's course: https://zardini.mit.edu/act4ed/

MIT applied category theory course: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-s097-applied-category-theory-january-iap-2019/

Seven sketches in compositionality: http://brendanfong.com/fong_spivak_an_invitation.pdf

LQG control co-design paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9654960

LQG background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_hFazBGxU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_RDCFOlJx4

Aaron Ames: http://ames.caltech.edu/

Nikolai Matni: https://nikolaimatni.github.io/

John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle
CDC episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZUcm3gVHKILDEyDjQtXvx

Braess’s paradox: https://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/departments/d1/teaching/ws12/ct/Braess-paradox.pdf

Co-design of mobility-on-demand systems: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04739

Formula One co-design papers: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/entities/publication/bd65f78e-f19a-4469-a379-d4b219893a33https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/JQmudB

Co-design of soft robotics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.03761

Cosimo Della Santina inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/LPNORz

Games with partially-ordered objectives: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.07099

Mingjia He: https://mingjia-he.github.io/

Paper on hierarchical games: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12059

Game theory episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xrwua7U2HfSW3sxY6BnRU

Jeff Shamma inControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18482182-ep40-jeff-shamma-gain-scheduling-nonlinear-control-learning-dissipativity-in-games-jiu-jitsu

Vincent Abbott: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/vincent-abbott/

Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/sangiovanni-vicentelli.html

InControl episodes: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/14692449-ep21-alberto-sangiovanni-vincentelli-part-i-classics-eda-logic-synthesis-spice-intel-x386-cadence-synopsis-platform-based-design

https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/14882529-ep22-alberto-sangiovanni-vincentelli-part-ii-cyberphysical-and-hybrid-systems-contracts-chiplets-models-of-computation-time-innovative-ecosystems-biobricks-neuromorphics

John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle

In this episode I have a lovely conversation with Dr Barbara Franci about her research into game theory, exploring both theoretical concepts (such as variational inequalities, forwards-backwards algorithms, and stochastic Nash equilibrium-seeking problems) and practical applications, including resource allocation, energy management, and generative adversarial networks!

You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h9AbCPzzlt7ggNOGx3bK3pwSaCUo__LtYzvdJ-5wqYw/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Barbara Franci: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/b-franci

PhD thesis: https://tesidottorato.depositolegale.it/bitstream/20.500.14242/198173/1/FRANCI%20Tesi2.pdf

More background on evolutionary games: https://users.ssc.wisc.edu/~whs/teaching/805/handbook.pdf

Jeff Shamma inConctrol episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18482182-ep40-jeff-shamma-gain-scheduling-nonlinear-control-learning-dissipativity-in-games-jiu-jitsu

Wisdom of a crowd paper: https://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/18M1232267

Francesco Bullo: https://fbullo.github.io/

Original Galton paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/075450a0

Video on the Lagrangian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR4ff0dTLTw

Useful lecture notes on these concepts: https://www.mit.edu/~gfarina/notes/

Distributed forwards-backwards paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9309063

Extragradient paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11184508

Relaxed inertial forwards-backwards paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9682905

Professor Lacra Pavel: https://www.ece.utoronto.ca/people/pavel-l/

Deterministic decoupling paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330888828_An_operator_splitting_approach_for_distributed_generalized_Nash_equilibria_computation

Pseudo-monotone functions: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225986571_Pseudomonotone_Operators_A_Survey_of_the_Theory_and_Its_Applications

Inertial gradient descent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iudXf5n_3ro&t=60s

GANs paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9523601

Original Goodfellow paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661

Partial information paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109821006300

Incorporating a bias: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10886508

Nash games with misleading information: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11008595

Evolutionary dynamics in distributed control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7823106

In this bonus episode I explore the work of ten fascinating researchers that I met at the Meet the Faculty Candidates poster session at CDC last month. We cover a wide array of different areas, including data-driven methods, fault-tolerant control, biological systems, PDEs, distributed estimation and a whole lot more!

Correction: At ~5:20 I mention that Anju was able to characterize the strategies of the two communicating entities at the Nash equilibrium - In actual fact this is a Stackelberg equilibrium (Stackelberg games involve players acting sequentially, taking either a leader or follower role)

You can view the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15Tf4ORHPI5Thbs-nA9DQTSu87TKbYni9JJN2UXqn5kU/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

Links and references

Amy Strong: https://bridgeman.pratt.duke.edu/people/amy-strong

Paper on data-driven invariance: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19231

Anju Anand: https://sites.google.com/binghamton.edu/anjuanand

Strategic quantisation: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10960399

Incorporating privacy into the objective: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.06321

Brian Block: https://mae.osu.edu/people/block.168

Control of PDE traffic flow: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.04823

Declan Jagt: https://search.asu.edu/profile/3729730

Stability analysis of coupled multivariate PDEs: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.14840

Scalar quadratic PDEs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10384073

PIETOOLS software: https://control.asu.edu/pietools/pietools

Hamza El-Kebir: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamza-el-kebir/

Control authority degradation paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10354437

Sensor and actuator degradation: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10521243

Electrosurgery paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/21/210/20230420/90578/Heat-conduction-in-live-tissue-during

Electrostatic signed distance functions: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12554

Kirill Sechkar: https://engbio.ox.ac.uk/people/kirill-sechkar

Control of genetic circuits paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.01.646303v2.full.pdf

Nick Marios Kokolakis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-marios-t-kokolakis-44717b164/

Pre-defined time RL paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005109825003152

Parth Paritosh: https://pptx.github.io/pparitosh/Estimating a subset of variables: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.01227

Privacy preserving paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11073227

Radoslaw Patelski: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radoslaw-patelski/?originalSubdomain=pl

Observers for hovercraft: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9874346

ADRC with parameter identification: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10345678

ADRC with adaptive input gain: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019057825001089

Carmen Amo Alonso: https://camoalon.github.io/

Research overview: https://camoalon.github.io/research/

Comparing mixer blocks: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.15731

Intro to state space models in deep learning: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.16899

Combining generative AI with control in robotics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.10762

In this episode I bring my microphones with me to the conference of decision and control (CDC) where I talk to a load of interesting researchers about their recent work. Featuring discussion of a wide range of different topics, including reinforcement learning, control architecture, game theory, AI-human interaction, event-triggered control and a whole lot more!

You can view the episode transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h6PdTd9xLTcJOGPx6TIkXOKPz_NGoS9_sA8CUvoZlx8/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

CDC web-page: https://cdc2025.ieeecss.org/

Female influencers in control: https://www.control.lth.se/external-engagement/female-influencers-in-automatic-control/

Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7VtNHI6bG8UBEoSGiAuVXNsmXSHlw8xG0LuMon2DVd0Pv0A/viewform

inControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18361436-ep39-female-influencers-in-control

Alessandro Abate: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alessandro.abate/

Maegan Tucker: https://maegantucker.com/

Joe Moeller: https://joe-moeller.com/

Category theory blog: https://joe-moeller.com/hi/

Rodolphe Sepulchre: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/rs771

inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/9HLW37

Spiking control of a snake: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.02968

Neuromorphic architecture: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.11924

Raj Velichete: https://ece.illinois.edu/about/directory/grad-students/rkv4

Vijeth Hebber: https://www.vijethhebbar.com/

John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle

InControl episodes: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/yx0IF5https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/qtk0Le

Dimos Dimarogonas: https://people.kth.se/~dimos/

Plenary on formal verification for multi-agent systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3GSgVmxdo&t=1327s

Attacks on controlling multi-agent systems: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11036540

ESC inspired by insect flapping: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11006034

My CDC paper: https://pure.soton.ac.uk/admin/files/315205732/CDC2025_2_.pdf

Jorge Poveda: https://poveda.ucsd.edu/

Victoria Grushkovskaya: https://grushkovska.science/

Higher-order Lie bracket extremum-seeking: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.07092 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.01136

Azu Ozdaglar: https://asu.mit.edu/

Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DR37zdEKPw

Matt Turner: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5y5nkg/professor-matthew-turner

Matt Turner episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KLLOvbCjOkL0v8iXo84vt

Kemin Zhou: https://www.ece.lsu.edu/kemin/

Multiobjective complementary control: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/document/10767397

Yujun Huang: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/yujun-huang/

Tyler Hanks: https://gataslab.org/members/tylerhanks
NextCom: https://sites.google.com/view/css-nextcom

NextCom podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7exZHRwVazI8AaHtiSMmE8

Csaba Szepesvari: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~szepesva/

Friday plenary talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2IrHyuSjU

Fengyu Yue: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fengyu-yue-8849a6314/?originalSubdomain=il

Pio Ong: https://pioong.github.io/

Jacqueline Scherpen: https://www.rug.nl/staff/j.m.a.scherpen/?lang=en

Bode lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2IrHyuSjU (Skip to 4:52:46)

Alberto Padoan episode on model order reduction: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kwlnlQqtID1naRcyLL12O

Meggie Maschner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meggie-marschner-445634236/?originalSubdomain=de

Brooks Butler: https://sites.google.com/view/brooks-butler

Mauro Salazar: https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/mauro-salazar

Design of smart cities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2IrHyuSjU (Skip to 8:32:49)

In this episode I talk to some wonderful members of IEEEcontrol systems society (CSS) NextCom committee about their work fostering inclusivity and belonging within CSS, as well as empowering the next generation of leaders within control. We also cover how you can be a part of this!

You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/186arBxVLdcpHUCT9djgXQ7IMVvX5SLsMk0LmnzOLbRY/edit?usp=sharing

Fill in this leadership interest survey if you’d like to getinvolved: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc-9qK13qYOSylyo-L-s8LvIYjd9bUmWlpd7zj2C7cxDASK-Q/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=113511961640315346198

Slack channel: https://join.slack.com/t/next-comworkspace/shared_invite/zt-3kz84ooc6-iLeTIhTKs5oMwJ8ccjTZxw(This link will time-out after a little while – if you find it’s not working you can contract me or one of the other committee members and we can add you directly!)

Links and references

NextCom webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/css-nextcom

Brooks Butler: https://sites.google.com/view/brooks-butler

Email: bbutler2@uci.edu

Anastasia Bizyaeva: https://anastasiabzv.github.io/

Email: anastasiab@cornell.edu

Phil E Paré: https://sites.google.com/view/philpare

Umar Niazi: https://sites.google.com/view/umarniazi/

Urmee Maitra: https://urmeemaitra.github.io/

Carina Veil: https://profiles.stanford.edu/carina-veil

Pio Ong: https://pioong.github.io/

Leonardo Toso: https://leotoso.github.io/

ECC episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4PAlFzgSoLM6andaXEWB8e

This month I got to interview Sophie Schirmer about herfascinating work on quantum control, including notions such as controllability and realisability, different types of quantum states (including pure, mixed, and dark states), comparison between different approaches to optimisation, and the quantum phenomena inside MRI scanners!

You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l0TFtckp7zEKCG0wdMHY0nySptrzbkV9ohQExa6ykGg/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Sophie’s thesis: https://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/items/63c4205b-9a0d-4622-833f-377f975c8cb3

Herschel Rabitz papers: https://pubs.aip.org/aip/acp/article-abstract/334/1/160/783416/Control-of-quantum-dynamics-The-dream-is-alive?redirectedFrom=fulltext

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.259.5101.1581

Control paradigms for quantum engineering: https://arxiv.org/abs/0805.2890

Energy landscape shaping as feedback control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8119551

Kinematic bounds paper: https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.58.2684

Dynamic realisability of systems that aren’t completelycontrollable: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/912046

Types of controllability: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0305-4470/35/18/309

More detail in this paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0110171

Hilbert spaces: https://www.math.ucdavis.edu/~hunter/book/ch6.pdf

Pure vs mixed states: https://medium.com/@emilmarinov/pure-mixed-and-entangled-quantum-states-84e8a4a8dd16

Controllability with a single actuator: https://arxiv.org/pdf/0801.0721

Dark states and their enlightenment: https://arxiv.org/abs/1003.4290

Quantum gravity lecture: https://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/oxford-mathematics-public-lectures-carlo-rovelli-spin-networks-quantum-structure-spacetime-penroses

Incorporating encoding into quantum system design: https://journals.aps.org/pra/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevA.109.042408

Ilja Kuprov: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5x97wv/professor-ilya-kuprov

Beyondpiecewise constant controls: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.09458

Lyaounov functions: https://underactuated.mit.edu/lyapunov.html

p.s. I would highly recommend the inControl episode on AleksandrLyapunov: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18019902-ep37-a-m-lyapunov-the-general-problem-of-stability-of-motion

Control Lyapunov functions: https://stanford.edu/class/ee363/lectures/io-lyap.pdf

Lyapunov control of quantum systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=5415539

Entanglement generation: https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.80.042305

Bell states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_state

Edmund Jonckheere: https://ee.usc.edu/~jonckhee/

SSV paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9682796

Robust control of open quantum systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9792196

Entanglement generation in a lossy cavity: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9992337

Quantum reservoir engineering: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1474667016316962

Energy landscape shaping paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/addc0d/pdf

Schrodinger’s cat review paper: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140/epjd/e2015-60464-1

Feynman’s lectures on physics: https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

In this month’s episode got to talk to Dr Carrie Weidner allabout controlling quantum systems! I find out what the control objective is forthese systems, how to characterise their robustness (or at least attempt to),how easy it is to apply this to practical systems, and a lot more besides.

You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aixaD-P6R6jFDjS4Zp6nJ2n5ZHPfbWKYCue2v2_ZCVU/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

PhD thesis: https://jila.colorado.edu/sites/default/files/2019-03/Weidner_PhD_final.pdf

Sabine Hauert episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/65iwMh2NstKqXvfATpzfm4

Sabine episode transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/12t_8k9LRckeGB--YVDS0XWnOeLX8sQcY3njA7jBCj1o/edit?usp=sharing

Carrie’s quantum control survey: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.00294

Sophie Shermer: https://www.swansea.ac.uk/staff/s.schirmer/

Frank Langbein: https://langbein.org/
Edmond Jonckheere: https://ee.usc.edu/~jonckhee/

Sean O’Neil: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=250lKHEAAAAJ&hl=en

Phila Rembold: https://qusco-itn.eu/portfolio_page/phila-rembold-2/
Bases in quantum control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.20889

Nelder-Mead optmisation: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Nelder-Mead_algorithm#Advantages_and_disadvantageshttps://brandewinder.com/2022/03/31/breaking-down-Nelder-Mead/

Ronnie Kosloff: https://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/connect/explore-the-humboldt-network/singleview/1211067/prof-dr-ronnie-kosloff

Belavkin-Carmichael quantum filter: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0510028

Luenburg filter papers: https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.06454

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6426181

Non-Markovian systems papers: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/14/7/073023

https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.09637

Christiane Koch: https://atominnen.at/empower/interviews/382-christiane-koch

Open quantum systems paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0953-8984/28/21/213001

Carrie’s mu analysis paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2207.12385

Randa Herzallah: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/sci/maths/people/staff/herzallah/

Paper on quantum optimal control: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00207179.2024.2342939

Quantum thermodynamics paper: https://journals.aps.org/pra/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevA.98.012139

Irtaza Khalid: https://profiles.cardiff.ac.uk/staff/khalidmi

Robustness-infidelity metric paper: https://journals.aps.org/pra/pdf/10.1103/PhysRevA.107.032606

Time-domain log-sensitivity paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2210.15783

Unifying log-sensitivity and RIM: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2303.09518

Robust quantum control papers:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.05372

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.13691

Energy landscape shaping paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/addc0d

Jacob Sherson: https://jacobsherson.com/

David DiVincenzo: https://qutech.nl/person/david-divincenzo/

Enrico Fermi: https://www.dpma.de/english/our_office/publications/milestones/greatinventors/enricofermi/index.html

Physical review letters paper: https://link.aps.org/accepted/10.1103/PhysRevLett.120.263201

Point spread modification paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.05341

In this episode I sit down with Dr Andy Lawrence and learn all about the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), including his top tips on successful grant applications, advice for not getting discouraged by rejected submissions, how to build successful collaborations with industry, and a lot more besides!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FxscV2YjbfeI_u26ETkA25hMwGVmJojHdV5zj7J7wyE/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

Andy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-lawrence-7ab0361a/

UKRI: https://www.ukri.org/
EPSRC: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/

Standard mode open funding: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-applicants/types-of-funding-we-offer/standard-research/

New investigator awards: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-applicants/types-of-funding-we-offer/new-investigator-award/

Network grants: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-applicants/types-of-funding-we-offer/network-grants/

Travel grants: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-applicants/types-of-funding-we-offer/international-funding/overseas-travel-grants/

Program grants: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-applicants/types-of-funding-we-offer/programme-grants/

Lyapunov theory: https://www.cds.caltech.edu/~murray/courses/cds101/fa02/caltech/mls93-lyap.pdf

Kalman filtering: https://thekalmanfilter.com/kalman-filter-explained-simply/

https://kalmanfilter.net/

Non-compressible haemorrhage funding call: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/novel-technology-for-intervening-in-non-compressible-haemorrhage/

General multidisciplinary scheme: https://www.ukri.org/what-we-do/browse-our-areas-of-investment-and-support/ukri-cross-research-council-responsive-mode-pilot-scheme/

Details and support regarding EPSRC remit: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-applicants/epsrc-remit/

UKRI funding service: https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/develop-your-application/how-applicants-use-the-ukri-funding-service/

Peer review college: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/guidance-for-reviewers/peer-review-college/

Nature-based engineering funding call: https://www.ukri.org/opportunity/unlocking-the-full-potential-of-nature-based-engineering/

UKRI remit agreement: https://www.ukri.org/apply-for-funding/get-support-for-your-project/if-your-research-spans-different-disciplines/

Robotic mandibles project: https://www.ukri.org/news/copying-ants-could-help-robots-get-a-better-grip/

https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.05364

This episode features the second part of my interview with the fantastic Alberto Padoan! Featuring discussions of data-driven modelling in a geometric/ non-linear context, how to define distances in a behavioural systems setting, and the origin story of his podcast, inControl.

You can find the transcript at: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/y67vmp

Follow the podcast on linkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast

Or connect with me personally: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

Alberto episode part 1: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kwlnlQqtID1naRcyLL12O

Paolo Rapisarda: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5x2hb9/professor-paolo-rapisarda

(Coffee and Control episode) https://open.spotify.com/episode/076dEw28abILPAbT5qA6aw

Persistency of excitation for autonomous systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7902166

Giordano Scarciotti: https://giordanoscarciotti.com/

Alessandro Astolfi: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.astolfi

Alessandro’s paper on moment matching: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5437314

Almost periodicity: https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2022/02/16/almost-periodic-functions/

Examples of uses of polynomial matrices in behaviouralsystems context: https://research.rug.nl/en/publications/linear-differential-systems-2

Conical, convex, and affine behaviours paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10383687

Jan Willems behavioural systems paper: https://homes.esat.kuleuven.be/~sistawww/smc/jwillems/Articles/ConferenceArticles/2002/5.pdf

Ettore Fornasini: https://www.dei.unipd.it/~fornasini/

Data-driven control Stuttgart: ⁠https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/Y3ytXoAutonomous e-scooter: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/oMiusDSoft robotics: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9992740MPC control of covid outbreaks: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S136757882030078X?via%3Dihub

Florian Dörfler: https://dorfler.ethz.ch/

John Lygeros: https://control.ee.ethz.ch/people/profile.john-lygeros.html

Jeremy Coulson: https://jeremycoulson.github.io/

Keith Moffat: http://www.keithmoffat.comAlessandro Chuiso: https://automatica.dei.unipd.it/alessandro-chiuso/

Linear quadratic tracking paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7068299

Ivan Markovsky: https://imarkovs.github.io/

Distances between finite horizon behaviours: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=11022752

Uncertainty quantification in data-driven control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9993002

Split-as-a-pro: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.19411

Yu Tang: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/yu-tang

Carlo Cenedese: https://ee.ethz.ch/the-department/people-a-z/person-detail.Mjg0OTQz.TGlzdC8zMjc5LC0xNjUwNTg5ODIw.html

Alessio Rimoldi: https://github.com/AlessioRimoldi

Behavioural uncertainty gap metric paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9993002

Vidyasagar inControl episode (ep 33): https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/wfzcsi

Malcolm Smith: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/mcs1000Glenn Vinnicombe: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/gv103
DeePC: https://arxiv.org/abs/1811.05890

CDC/LSS paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.22849

Steve Brunton SVD series: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/isMaZS

inControl podcast: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/

NCCR automation: https://nccr-automation.ch/

Rudolf Kalman: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_E._K%C3%A1lm%C3%A1n

Jan Willems: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Camiel_Willems

George Zames: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Zames

Norbert Weiner inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/7PQUfdRichard Bellman inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/XGgk11(Miroslav Kristic) https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/1RD07e(Tryphon Georgiou) https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/mwpfwx(Mustafa Khammash) https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/T0BsyS

In this episode I sit down with the wonderful Alberto Padoan and discuss his work on model order reduction and generalising concepts from linear systems to the non-linear setting.

You can find the transcript at: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/IRMql9

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References

inControl podcast: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/

Andrea Marson: https://andreamarson.com/bio/

Master’s thesis: https://thesis.unipd.it/retrieve/82963fa4-bbb4-4577-9b83-b4e741a3ce20/main.pdf

Alessandro Astolfi: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.astolfi

Sandro Zampieri: https://automatica.dei.unipd.it/old/people/zampieri.html

inControl guide to Controllability and Observability: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/haKThe

Stieltjes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Joannes_Stieltjes

PhD thesis: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/sImTiq

Keith Glover: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/kg103

Coffee and Control episode with Paolo Rapisarda: https://open.spotify.com/episode/076dEw28abILPAbT5qA6aw

Thesis on Krylov projectors for model reduction: https://perso.uclouvain.be/paul.vandooren/ThesisGrimme.pdf

Sylvester equations and model reduction: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377042703007143

Book on Sylvester equations: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/e7nYSQ

Jacqueline Scherpen: https://www.rug.nl/staff/j.m.a.scherpen/cv?lang=en

Alberto Isidori: https://www.diag.uniroma1.it/isidori/

Murray Wonham book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4612-1082-5

Basile and Marro book: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/gE3KxH

Eigenvalues/ poles of nonlinear systems: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8264032

Books on creativity:

Ernest Hemmingway quotes: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/1455.Ernest_Hemingway

Dynamics of Creation (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dynamics-Creation-Anthony-Storr/dp/0345376730)explores how creativity helps resolve inner conflict.

Moment matching at singularities:

(Complex analytic) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896317314957

(Geometric) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=8264369

Moments of random variables: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8637762

Klein bottle videos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAsICMPwGPY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k3mVnRlQLU

Distributions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distribution_(differential_geometry)

https://webspace.science.uu.nl/~ban00101/anman2009/lecture2.pdf

http://staff.ustc.edu.cn/~wangzuoq/Courses/18F-Manifolds/Notes/Lec15.pdf

András Sasfi: https://control.ee.ethz.ch/people/profile.andras-sasfi.html

Model reduction of dominant systems: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109821002156

Rodolphe Sepulchre: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/rs771

(inControl episode) https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/1cOrwp

(Paper on spiking systems) https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9764708

Fulvio Forni: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/ff286

Goldbeter model: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9016794/

Goodwin model: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23936338/

Dominance margins: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405896319318671

Early papers on dominance: https://arxiv.org/abs/1709.06155

https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.01721

Intro to Nyquist diagrams: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sof3meN96MA

John Doyle:

(inControl interviews) https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/BTj37k

https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/k0PXan

Gioele Zardini: https://gioele.science/Alberto San Giovanni Vincentelli: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/sangiovanni-vicentelli.html

(inControl interviews)

https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/9fYOiB

https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/ehkaV9

In this episode I sit down with Dr Ying Shuai Quan and getexcited about her work on adaptive cruise control and lane-keeping systems, with particular focus on applying model predictive control. Features deep-dives into various aspects of MPC, with occasional offshoots into other cool areas of control!

You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ufp57VuzymcEivN3lzMaHVKgH8LgqI9BZDzgmdz2pug/edit?usp=sharing

Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

Or you can connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

References/ cool papers to learn more

Ying’s thesis: https://repository.hanyang.ac.kr/handle/20.500.11754/188296

Tube-based adaptive cruise control paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9992382

Motion sickness patents: (general system) https://patents.google.com/patent/US20250115255A1/en

(control and estimation) https://patents.google.com/patent/US20250128715A1/en

Tutorial on IQCs: https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84979771505

Classic LMI book: https://web.stanford.edu/~boyd/lmibook/lmibook.pdf

LMIs in control book chapter: https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-84800-025-4_4

Steve Brunton MPC video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwodGM2eoy4&t=1s

Great review/ tutorial paper on MPC: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00170-021-07682-3

Review on linear fractional transformations: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/261572

Ying’s control-barrier functions paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10130631

Tutorial paper on CBFs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10836828

Review on control barrier functions: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10836828

Using CBFs in MPC: https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.08400

Control Lyapunov-barrier function-based MPC: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8431468

High-order CBFs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9516971

Neural network lane-keeping paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8859955

Robust stability of NN-based LKS: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10644841

Matt Turner episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KLLOvbCjOkL0v8iXo84vt

Transcript: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r41Lcpv4MtxnqfMn8ZFfnAqiK5rlfcPZ19NQhfeqaFI/edit?usp=sharing

Multiple model switched adaptive control: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/72334/

Examples of systems with unknown input delays:

(Connected platoons) https://ieeexplore-ieee-org/document/9530266

(Glucose control in diabetes) https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85192198866

(Spacecraft control) https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/84947032651

Min-max MPC for non-linear systems: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0947358009707034

PCA: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/data-analysis/principal-component-analysis-pca/

LPV gain-scheduling control with parameter reduction: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9830128

Safe MPC using constraint softening: https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.15373

Application to autonomous driving: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.05933

Robust and Stochastic MPC: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367578816300098

Stochastic MPC review: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7740982Polynomial chaos in non-linear stochastic MPC: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6858851

Polynomial chaos overview: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6595094

Melanie Zeilinger: https://idsc.ethz.ch/the-institute/people/person-detail.html?persid=142737

Safe learning-based control talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBK1CNuU66c&t=572s

Control meets learning seminar series: https://sites.google.com/view/control-meets-learning/home