IfA Coffee Talks


    Coffee Talks at IfA are seminars designed to shed light on the interesting and innovative research going on, both internally at IfA, and also outside of IfA. Everyone is welcome to attend! No registration necessary.

    Logistics

    Room: ETL K25
    Time: Thursdays 11:00-12:00
    Organizer: Xavier Guidetti

    Mailing List

    If you would like to be informed about upcoming talks, please send an email to the organizer.

    Schedule (2024 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    11.01.2024 Ralph Evins University of Victoria Surrogate modelling of building energy use and a discussion of their role in building control
    18.01.2024 Elise Cahard NCCR Automation A dive into the world of chemistry – or how to play Lego® during your PhD.
    25.01.2024 Riccardo Zuliani IfA BP-MPC: Optimizing Closed-Loop Performance of MPC using BackPropagation
    01.02.2024 Claudio De Persis University of Groningen Feedback linearization with complete dictionaries
    08.02.2024 Kevin Wallington IfA Control in coupled human-water systems
    15.02.2024 Xavier Guidetti IfA A journey in the 3D printing jungle: taming the wilds of an open-loop process with optimization and control
    22.02.2024 Shinkyu Park Distributed Systems and Autonomy Lab, KAUST t.b.a.
    14.03.2024 Ezzat Elokda IfA t.b.a.
    21.03.2024 Mattia Bianchi IfA t.b.a.
    28.03.2024 Mohamad Amin Sharifi Kolarijani Delft Center for Systems and Control, Delft University of Technology t.b.a.

    Schedule (2023 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    12.01.2023 Carlo Cenedese IfA Applications to efficiently operate energy and traffic networks
    19.01.2023 Raffaele Soloperto IfA Learning-based Model Predictive Control with closed-loop guarantees
    26.01.2023 Efe Balta IfA Robust optimization methods as physics-in-the-loop learning controllers
    02.02.2023 Niklas Schmid IfA Probabilistic Reachability and Invariance Computation using Dynamic Programming
    09.02.2023 Ezzat Elokda IfA A self-contained karma economy for the dynamic allocation of shared resources
    23.02.2023 Wouter Jongeneel Risk Analytics and Optimization Chair, EPFL Control theory with Heinz Hopf
    02.03.2023 Verena Häberle IfA Dynamic virtual power plant control
    09.03.2023 Mihailo Jovanovic University of Southern California Robustness of accelerated first-order optimization algorithms
    16.03.2023 Mingzhou Yin IfA A few notes on l1-norm regularization
    23.03.2023 Giuseppe Belgioioso IfA Game-Theoretic Control of Complex Systems: Coordination, Competition, and Fairness
    30.03.2023 Zhiyu He IfA Nonlinear Feedback Optimization: Model-Free and Hybrid Approaches
    20.04.2023 Marta Fochesato IfA Wasserstein tube model predictive control
    27.04.2023 Xiuqiang He IfA Multivariable Stability of Converter-Based Power Systems: Centralized and Decentralized Methods
    11.05.2023 Sophie Hall IfA Receding Horizon Games - what are they, why do we care, and what about stability?
    25.05.2023 Aren Karapetyan IfA Online Learning for Control
    01.06.2023 Anil Parsi IfA A closed-loop approach to robust MPC design
    22.06.2023 Arsenii Mustafin Boston University Closing the gap between SVRG and TD-SVRG with Gradient Splitting
    29.06.2023 Nicolas Lanzetti IfA A Journey through Optimal Transport: From Mass Transportation to Control, Optimization, and Game Theory
    06.07.2023 Francesco Micheli IfA Enhancing Robustness in Data-Driven Episodic Model-Based Control with Distributionally Robust Optimization
    20.07.2023 Lenart Treven IfA Efficient Exploration for Continuous and Discrete Time RL
    27.07.2023 Mahmoud Salamati Max Planck Institute for Software Systems Broadening the Scope of Abstraction-Based Controller Design for Cyber-Physical Systems
    17.08.2023 Luca Ballotta University of Padova On Fundamental Trade-offs and Architecture Design in Networked Control Systems
    21.09.2023 Varsha Behrunani IfA A step towards fully automated energy systems: control strategies and pricing schemes for large scale energy networks
    28.09.2023 Liviu Aolaritei IfA Capture, Propagate, and Control Distributional Uncertainty
    05.10.2023 Chris Verhoek Eindhoven University of Technology Towards data-driven control of general nonlinear systems with stability and performance guarantees
    12.10.2023 Matilde Gargiani IfA Numerical Optimization for Dynamic Programming
    19.10.2023 Mingzhou Yin IfA Data-driven prediction and control with stochastic data: a system identification perspective
    02.11.2023 Claudia Fischer IfA Musings on career planning and ice cream
    09.11.2023 Jared Miller IfA Data-Driven Methods using Parameterized Robust Optimization
    23.11.2023 Zebang Shen Institute for Machine Learning, ETH Zürich Entropy-dissipation Informed Neural Network for McKean-Vlasov Type PDEs
    30.11.2023 Andrea Martinelli IfA Interconnection of Discrete-Time Dissipative Systems
    07.12.2023 Linbin Huang IfA Control of renewable-energy-dominated power systems

    Schedule (2022 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    24.02.2022 Kenan Zhang IfA Games and “control” on traffic networks
    03.03.2022 Julian Berberich Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control, University of Stuttgart Data-Driven MPC for Nonlinear Systems via Online Data Updates
    24.03.2022 Tyler Holt Summers University of Texas at Dallas Robust Data-Driven Control via Bootstrapped Multiplicative Noise
    07.04.2022 Ana Radovanovic Google Carbon-Aware Computing @ Google, and beyond
    14.04.2022 Matthias Hofer Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Inflatable robotic manipulators: control strategies and vision-based sensing
    28.04.2022 Lukas Ortmann IfA Online Feedback Optimization
    12.05.2022 Yuchao Li Division of Decision and Control Systems, KTH Stockholm Approximate Solution Methods to Optimal Control Problems via Dynamic Programming Models
    19.05.2022 Ben Kroposki Power Systems Engineering Center, NREL, Colorado Integrating Massive amounts of Wind and Solar in Electric Power Systems [link for slides]
    06.10.2022 Benjamin Sawicki IfA Opportunities at Large-Scale Demonstrators
    13.10.2022 Cyrus Mostajeran NTU Singapore Non-Euclidean optimization and statistics in the positive semidefinite cone
    20.10.2022 Mathias Hudoba de Badyn IfA From Smart Cities to a Smart Future: Networks in Control
    27.10.2022 Ahmed Aboudonia IfA Adaptive Learning-based MPC for uncertain interconnected systems
    03.11.2022 Andrea Martinelli IfA Overview on data-driven optimal control via linear programming
    10.11.2022 Anastasios Tsiamis IfA Statistical Learning for Control: A Finite Sample Perspective
    24.11.2022 Irina Subotic IfA Dual-port grid-forming power converter control for renewable integration and hybrid AC/DC power systems
    01.12.2022 Marta Zagorowska IfA Efficient Learning for Control
    15.12.2022 Julian Dederke, Fabian Schmid, Rainer ETH Library Research Data Management and Open Access - Guidance and Good Practice

    Schedule (2021 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    21.01.2021 Mohammad Khosravi IfA A Hitchhiker's Guide to Identification of Gradient Flows & Beyond
    28.01.2021 Dominik Baumann Institute for Data Science in Mechanical Engineering, RWTH Aachen Wireless Control of Cyber-physical Systems
    04.02.2021 Matteo Turchetta Learning and Adaptive Systems Group, ETH Zürich Bayesian Optimization for Robust and Safe Policy Search
    11.02.2021 Friedrich Solowjow Intelligent Control Systems Group, MPI Event-triggered Learning
    25.02.2021 Ilnura Usmanova IfA Safe convex optimization with black-box objective and constraints
    04.03.2021 Sandeep Menta IfA Learning Q-function approximations for hybrid control problems
    11.03.2021 Angeliki Kamoutsi IfA Efficient Performance Bounds for Primal-Dual Reinforcement Learning from Demonstrations
    25.03.2021 Dominic Liao-McPherson IfA Model Predictive Emissions Control of Diesel Engines
    22.04.2021 Dany Abou Jaoude American University of Beirut Computationally Driven Algorithms for Distributed Control of Complex Systems
    29.04.2021 Frederik Banis IfA Real-time operation additions for a electric vehicle virtual power plant managed by a profit-maximizing, risk-averse electric vehicle aggregator
    06.05.2021 Stefano Moret Imperial College London Whole-energy systems planning under uncertainty: a robust optimization framework
    20.05.2021 Michael Fisher IfA Heterogeneous Ensemble Control with Application to Dynamic Virtual Power Plants
    27.05.2021 Corentin Briat Control Theory and Systems Biology Lab, ETH Zürich Cybergenetics: A control theory for living cells
    03.06.2021 Liviu Aolaritei IfA Optimal Transport Based Distributionally Robust Optimization: Nash Equilibrium, Regularization, and Computation
    10.06.2021 Nino Antulov-Fantulin Computational Social Sciences, ETH Zürich Complexity and Machine Learning with applications
    17.06.2021 Thomas Asikis Computational Social Sciences, ETH Zürich Neural Ordinary Differential Equation Control of Dynamics on Graphs
    01.07.2021 Carlo Sferrazza Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Data-driven, vision-based tactile sensing: design, simulation, and applications to robot control
    08.07.2021 Keith Moffat University of California Berkeley Voltage Phasor Based Control for Distribution Networks
    22.07.2021 Liang Xu Automatic Control Laboratory, EPFL A Data-Driven Convex Programming Approach to Worst-Case Robust Tracking Controller Design
    12.08.2021 Lukas Fröhlich Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Sample-efficient Controller Learning — Local Bayesian Optimization and On-Policy Corrections for Model-based RL
    26.08.2021 Jochen Markard Group for Sustainability and Technology, ETH Zürich Deep decarbonization: The next big transition challenge
    16.09.2021 Kim Peter Wabersich Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Predictive Mechanisms for Safe Learning in Control Systems
    23.09.2021 Giuseppe Belgioioso IfA Online Feedback Equilibrium Seeking
    11.11.2021 Joel Rosenfeld University of South Florida Dynamic Mode Decompositions for Control Affine Systems
    18.11.2021 Rafael Wisniewski Aalborg University Safety of Stochastic Systems: An Analytic and Computational Approach

    Schedule (2020 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    16.01.2020 Daoyi Dong University of New South Wales Estimation, Control and Learning in Quantum Technology [link for slides]
    23.01.2020 Matteo Tacchi RTE, Paris Lasserre Hierarchy for Stability Region Approximation [link for slides]
    30.01.2020 Shima Mousavi Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, ETH Zürich Controllability of Networked Systems Based on Structural Features of Underlying Graphs
    06.02.2020 Trevor Zhen IfA Distributionally Robust Nonlinear Optimization
    13.02.2020 Ahmed Aboudonia IfA Distributed Model Predictive Control with Reconfigurable Terminal Ingredients for Reference Tracking
    20.02.2020 Guillén Gosalbez Gonzalo Institute for Chemical Systems Engineering, ETH Zürich On the Application of Mathematical Programming Techniques in Sustainability Problems
    27.02.2020 Didier Henrion LAAS-CNRS An Introduction to the Lasserre (Moments Sums of Squares) Hierarchy in Polynomial Optimization and Control
    10.09.2020 Ivan Markovsky Vrije Universiteit Brussel Data-driven simulation of polynomial time-invariant systems
    01.10.2020 Mingzhou Yin IfA Maximum Likelihood Estimation in Data-Driven Modeling and Control
    08.10.2020 Wouter Jongeneel EPFL From Correlated Data to Guarantees in Stable Identification
    29.10.2020 Paolo Tiso Chair in Nonlinear Dynamics, ETH Zürich Model-Driven Methods for Reduced Order Modeling of Structural Dynamics
    5.11.2020 Anil Parsi IfA Active exploration in adaptive model predictive control
    12.11.2020 Sebastian Stich EPFL Towards Decentralized Machine Learning with SGD
    19.11.2020 Pier Giuseppe Sessa IfA No-Regret Learning in Unknown Games with Correlated Payoffs
    26.11.2020 Miguel Picallo Cruz IfA Predictive-Sensitivity: Beyond Singular Perturbation for Control Design on Multiple Time Scale
    10.12.2020 Soroosh Shafiee IfA A Unified Approach for Solving Optimal Transport Problems
    17.12.2020 Ashish Hota IIT Kharagpur Impacts of Game-Theoretic Activation on Epidemic Spread over Dynamical Networks
    Seminars were suspended until October due to COVID-19.

    Schedule (2019 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    17.01.2019 Ghislain Fourny Department of Computer Science, ETH Zürich Non-Nashian Game Theory: Towards Friendly and Trustworthy Robots?
    24.01.2019 Jeremy Coulson IfA Data-Enabled Predictive Control: In the Shallows of the DeePC
    31.01.2019 Adrian Hauswirth IfA Timescale Separation in Autonomous Optimization
    14.02.2019 Benjamin Flamm IfA Two-Stage Approximation of Dual Dynamic Programming with Application to Energy Storage Control
    21.02.2019 Andrea Censi Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Liability, Ethics, and Culture-Aware Behavior Specification using Rulebooks
    28.02.2019 Kfir Y. Levy Learning and Adaptive Systems Group, ETH Zürich Online Variance Reduction for Stochastic Optimization
    14.03.2019 Angeliki Kamoutsi IfA A Stochastic Convex Optimization Framework for Inverse Optimal Control and Apprenticeship Learning in Large-Scale Markov Decision Processes
    21.03.2019 Huang Linbin ​​IfA & Zhejiang University Data-Enabled Predictive Control for Grid-Connected Power Converters
    28.03.2019 Martin Larsson ETH Risk Center & Department of Mathematics, ETH Zürich Commodity Forward Curve Modeling using Polynomial Processes
    04.04.2019 Dengxin Dai ​​Computer Vision Lab, ETH Zürich Autonomous Driving under Adverse Conditions
    11.04.2019 Baiwei Guo ​​IfA Actuator Placement for Structural Controllability: Performance Guarantees and Impossibility Results
    18.04.2019 Paul Beuchat ​​IfA Point-wise Maximum Approach to Approximate Dynamic Programming
    25.04.2019 Guillermo Gallego ​​Dept. Informatics, UZH, and Dept. Neuroinformatics, ETH Zürich and UZH Optimal Piecewise Linear Function Approximation for Real-Time Applications
    16.05.2019 Miriam Schlöter Institute for Operations Research, ETH Zürich Flows Over Time and Submodular Function Minimization
    23.05.2019 Maryam Sharifi IfA Consensus of Multi-Agent Systems in the Presence of Communication Time Delays
    06.06.2019 Peter Bühlmann ​​Seminar für Statistik, ETH Zürich Statistical Inference for High-Dimensional and Heterogeneous Data
    13.06.2019 Zhiwu Huang ​​Computer Vision Lab, ETH Zürich Sliced Wasserstein Generative Models for Image Generation and Enhancement
    20.06.2019 Pier Giuseppe Sessa IfA Bounding Inefficiency of Equilibria in Continuous Actions Games using Submodularity and Curvature
    04.07.2019 Rainer Rees-Mertins ​​E Publishing, ETH Library Open Access Publishing, Funder Requirements and the Research Collection
    11.07.2019 Felix Bünning ​​IfA Electrical Reserves with Heat Pumps and Affine Decision Rules - A demonstration of the future role of building energy systems with NEST
    25.07.2019 Markus Maier ​​Inspire Autonomous Process Set-up of Machine Tools
    15.08.2019 Martin Nägele ​​Institute for Operations Research, ETH Zürich The Travelling Salesman Problem: Recent advances in theory and some applications
    29.08.2019 Lukas Hewing ​​Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Stochastic Model Predictive Control using Probabilistic Reachable Sets: Recursive Feasibility and Closed-loop Constraint Satisfaction
    12.09.2019 Kim Peter Wabersich ​​Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Safe Exploration of Nonlinear Dynamical Systems: A Predictive Safety Filter for Learning-Based Control
    26.09.2019 Angeliki Kamoutsi ​​IfA Stochastic Convex Optimization for Provably Efficient Apprenticeship Learning
    03.10.2019 Sara Van de Geer ​​Seminar für Statistik, ETH Zürich Prediction Bounds for (Higher Order) Total Variation Regularized Least Squares
    17.10.2019 Mathias Hudoba de Badyn ​​IfA H2 Performance of Series-Parallel Networks
    24.10.2019 Nicoló Pagan ​​IfA Game-Theoretical Inference of Human Behaviour in Social Networks
    31.10.2019 Samuel Balula ​​IfA Reference design for closed-loop system optimization
    07.11.2019 Christina Heinze-Deml ​​Seminar für Statistik, ETH Zürich Conditional Variance Penalties and Domain Shift Robustness
    14.11.2019 Ilija Bogunovic Learning and Adaptive Systems Group, ETH Zürich Robust Sample-Efficient Learning in Uncertain Environments [link for slides]
    21.11.2019 Lukas Ortmann ​​IfA Voltage Regulation in Distribution Grids with Networked Generators
    28.11.2019 Andrea Martinelli ​​IfA Control of Networked Power Systems: from Energy to Clusters
    05.12.2019 Eva Ahbe ​​IfA Region of Attraction Analysis of Nonlinear Stochastic Systems using Polynomial Chaos Expansion

    Schedule (2018 Series)

    Date Speaker Affiliation Title
    11.01.2018 Tom Sulzer Sulzer & Schmid Laboratories The Importance of Control Theory and Automation Technology for a Drone Startup
    18.01.2018 Bala Kameshwar Poolla IfA Virtual Inertia-Optimal Placement Strategies and a Pricing Mechanism
    25.01.2018 Nicoló Pagan IfA Social Network Formation: from Individual Incentives to Systemic Stability
    08.02.2018 Luca Furieri IfA Synthesizing Robust Distributed Controllers: When is Information Enough?
    15.02.2018 Stephen Duncan University of Oxford The Lurie Problem: Some New Results and an Application
    22.02.2018 An Bian Institute for Machine Learning, ETH Zürich Guaranteed Non-Convex Optimization via Continuous Submodularity
    08.03.2018 Duncan Callaway University of California, Berkeley Model Free Control and Optimization in Electric Distribution Systems
    15.03.2018 Donatello Materassi University of Tennessee in Knoxville Learning the Input/Output Structure of a Network from Data
    29.03.2018 Enric Sánchez Technical University of Catalonia The Modular Multilevel Converter: Insights and Applications in High Voltage Direct Current
    05.04.2018 Eva Ahbe IfA Stability Certificates for Periodic Trajectories of Controlled Power Kite Systems
    19.04.2018 Hoda Heidari Institute for Machine Learning, ETH Zürich A Framework for Evaluating Callout Mechanisms in Repeated Auctions
    26.04.2018 Marco Hutter Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zürich Legged Locomotion as Optimization Problem
    03.05.2018 Andrej Jokic University of Zagreb On Dissipativity and Structure in Analysis and Control of Large-scale Systems
    17.05.2018 Felix Rey IfA Strengthening the Group: Aggregated Frequency Reserve Bidding with ADMM
    24.05.2018 Annika Eichler IfA Humans in the Loop: How to Consider Thermal Comfort by the Building Energy Management System
    31.05.2018 Yvonne Stürz IfA A Framework for Distributed Control Based on Overlapping Estimation
    07.06.2018 Brian Fitzpatrick Seminar for Applied Mathematics, ETH Zürich Mathematical Analysis of Minnaert Resonances for Acoustic Metamaterials
    21.06.2018 Dario Paccagnan IfA Distributed Algorithms and Performance Certificates for a Class of Combinatorial Resource Allocation Problems
    28.06.2018 Dongchan Lee Massachusetts Institute of Technology Convex Restriction of Power Flow Feasibility Set
    05.07.2018 Alexander Liniger IfA Optimization-based Collision Avoidance
    12.07.2018 Regan Baucke The University of Auckland Minimax Dynamic Programmes on Convex Control Spaces
    19.07.2018 Fabien Pean Computer-Assisted Applications in Medicine, ETH Zürich Modelling, Simulation and Control of Musculoskeletal Systems: Application to the Shoulder Joint
    26.07.2018 Ashish Kumar Cherukuri IfA Iterative Bidding in Electricity Markets
    09.08.2018 Thomas Stastny Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zürich From Guidance to Local Planning: Applying NMPC to Small Fixed-wing UAVs
    16.08.2018 Dmitry Shchetinin Power Systems Laboratory, ETH Zürich Efficient Bound Tightening Techniques for Convex Relaxations of AC Optimal Power Flow
    23.08.2018 Klaas Enno Stephan Translational Neuromodeling Unit, UZH and ETH Zürich Translational Neuromodeling for Psychiatry and Psychosomatics
    06.09.2018 Mauro Salazar Institute for Dynamic Systems and Control, ETH Zürich Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand
    13.09.2018 Zimu Zhou Computer Engineering and Networks Laboratory, ETH Zürich A Unified Approach to Route Planning for Ridesharing
    20.09.2018 Adam Kurpisz Institute for Operations Research, ETH Zürich Semi-Algebraic Proof Systems for Polynomial Optimization Problems
    27.09.2018 Sandro Merkli IfA Globally Optimal AC Power System Upgrade Planning under Operational Policy Constraints
    04.10.2018 Goran Banjac IfA Decentralized Resource Allocation via Dual Consensus ADMM
    11.10.2018 Arnulf Jentzen Seminar for Applied Mathematics, ETH Zürich Stochastic Approximation Algorithms for High-Dimensional Partial Differential Equations
    18.10.2018 Wenjun Mei IfA Ockham's Razor in Opinion Dynamics: Modeling and Analysis of the Weighted-Median Influence Process
    25.10.2018 Marco Lauricella IfA & Politecnico di Milano A Set Membership Approach to the Identification of Linear Systems with Guaranteed Simulation Accuracy
    01.11.2018 Pengling Wang Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, ETH Zürich Towards Autonomous Driving Trains: Optimization Methods for Energy Efficient Driving
    15.11.2018 Roy Smith IfA The Stability of Systems in Stochastic Feedback Loops
    22.11.2018 Felix Berkenkamp Learning and Adaptive Systems Group, ETH Zürich Safe Model-Based Learning for Robot Control
    29.11.2018 Joseph Paat Institute for Operations Research, ETH Zürich Proximity of optimal solutions of MIPs
    06.12.2018 Ilnura Usmanova IfA Safe Convex Learning under Uncertain Constraints
    13.12.2018 Joe Warrington IfA Two-Stage Stochastic Approximation for Dynamic Rebalancing of Shared Mobility Systems
    20.12.2018 Taouba Jouini IfA Local Synchronisation of Two DC/AC Converters Via Matching Control

    Schedules of the previous years are available upon request.