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Herkömmliche Lösungen zur Verkehrsentlastung haben ein Problem: Sie sind von Natur aus ungerecht. Durch die Erhebung von Gebühren für den Zugang zu Strassen werden einkommensschwache Bevölkerungsschichten stark benachteiligt. Unsere Forscher haben vielleicht einen Weg gefunden, die Welt ein bisschen gerechter zu machen.

Each year, NCCR Automation works with a number of our sister NCCRs to put on the bench2biz event, a two week workshop for pre-seed research ideas. Each year, carefully curated experts are invited to join to give advice and feedback, and as this initiative is run through the NCCRs, the organisers can give personalized, tailored feedback and coaching.

For 2022’s edition, NCCR Automation member Manos Barmpounakis took part and was coached by KTT officer Ben Sawicki. We asked Manos for his thoughts on the experience.

Apply by the end of September to spend a period of up to six months in an NCCR Automation lab.

Der Mathematiker Yurii Nesterov ist einer der Hauptakteure auf dem Gebiet der konvexen Optimierung, die für viele Anwendungen in der Automatisierungstechnik entscheidend ist. Unter anderem dank seiner Durchbrüche dehnt sich dieses Gebiet auf viele andere Disziplinen aus. Damit ist er nicht so glücklich, wie man meinen könnte.

Humans have been trying to do more with less for a very long time. We’d like cars and planes that go further but use less fuel and have a smaller carbon footprint. We’d like food that is optimally nutritious but also affordable, and we’d like energy solutions for our house, cities and countries that are effective but also green and affordable.

The jury gave the following motivation: "The paper is being recognized for making a timely contribution to address noise-corrupted datasets in data-driven modeling and control through a principled statistical approach. The paper stands out for its completeness and high-impact potential in applications including predictive control and system identification".

Der Energiesektor verändert sich und Energieflexibilität entwickelt sich zu einem neuen Markt. Aber wie kann diese Flexibilität bei so viel Unsicherheit effektiv gehandelt werden? Julie Rousseau entwickelt ein Modell, das die Komplexität der realen Lebenswelt aufschlüsselt.

Congratulations to Varsha Behrunani for winning best poster award at the DTU PES summer school: Advances in OR and AI

Die Vorbereitungen für den diesjährigen RoboCup, der in Bordeaux, Frankreich, stattfinden wird, sind in vollem Gange. Dieses internationale Roboterfußballturnier vereint Studententeams aus verschiedenen Ländern, die in 7-gegen-7-Spielen gegeneinander antreten. Neben dem Wettbewerb ist der RoboCup auch eine Robotik-Konferenz.

Many congratulations to Baiwei Guo for winning Best PhD Paper Award at ECC23.

Auch wenn sich die Möglichkeiten von Internet-of-Things-Anwendungen vervielfachen, wird das Wachstum durch Energieprobleme gebremst. Eine Strategie ist das Energy Harvesting, das jedoch mit grundlegenden Einschränkungen verbunden ist. Naomi Stricker arbeitet an Lösungen.

We hosted 100 people at ETH's conference centre in Monte Verita, Ticino, and what a week we had!

In einer Zeit, in der Länder auf der ganzen Welt von Energieknappheit bedroht sind, haben ETH Zürich / NFS Automation -Forscher eine wirkungsvolle und kostengünstige Softwarelösung entwickelt, um die Nutzung dezentraler Energieressourcen zu verbessern. Dieser innovative Ansatz ermöglicht es Netzbetreibern, beispielsweise Photovoltaikanlagen durch einen flexiblen, reaktionsschnellen und datengesteuerten Betrieb optimal zu nutzen.

Obwohl neuronale Netze oft beeindruckende Leistungen erbringen, gelingt es ihnen manchmal nicht, einfache Konzepte zu erfassen, die der Mensch intuitiv versteht - ein Effekt, der sogar Leben gefährden kann. Aber können wir unser menschliches Wissen auf neuronale Netze übertragen, damit sie sinnvollere Lösungen lernen? Loris Di Natale, Forscher am NFS Automatisierung, hat einen Plan um sicherzustellen dass automatisierte Maschinen uns nicht ausschliessen.

Julie Rousseau is a PhD student at ETH Zurich and Empa looking at stabilising the energy grid.

Anna Scampicchio is a postdoctoral researcher at ETH Zurich who does theoretical research on why some systems behave the way they do.

Rahel Rickenbach is a PhD student at the Institute of Dynamic Systems and Control, at ETH Zurich.

Jelena Trisovic is a Ph.D. student at the ETH AI Center, she obtained an M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from ETH Zürich and a B.Sc. in Electrical Engineering and Computing from the University of Belgrade.

Alisa Rupenyan is a senior scientist at the Automatic Control Lab at ETH Zurich and Head of the Advanced Control and IoT group at Inspire, the technology transfer organization at ETH Zurich. She leads research projects in the intersection between process optimization, industrial control, and machine learning for applications strongly connected to manufacturing.

Clara Galimberti is a PhD student at EPFL. She received her degree in Electronic Engineering from Universidad Nacional de Rosario (UNR), Argentina, in 2018. Her research lies at the intersection of machine learning and control theory.

Maryam Kamgarpour leads the Sycamore lab at EPFL. Her theoretical research is motivated by control challenges arising in intelligent transportation networks, robotics, power grid systems and healthcare.

We are thrilled to announce that after a highly competitive round of financing calls for industry-academia projects, NCCR Automation has invested CHF 2.1 million in research into ten new, collaborative research projects. Projects will be hosted within an NCCR Automation lab and will continue with this funding for approximately two years, before being spun out in other formats.

Congratulations to NCCR Automation PI Silvia Mastellone who has been elected the board of governors of the IEEE Control System Society.

Loris Di Natale and Muhammad Zakwan are the perfect example of the interdisciplinarity fostered within NCCR Automation. They met during a project meeting and, after many months of exchange dedicated two full weeks of their time to drive their idea forward and to publish a paper. Several extensions of the initial idea are in the works so stay tuned for updates!

This time Alberto Padoan chats with Anuradha Annaswamy (MIT) about Adaptive Control and its exciting history, starting from the Brave Era to the audacious X15 tests and to modern intersections with RL.

Congratulations to NCCR PI Vasco Medici and his team for winning the Watt d'Or 2023 for their three year project that successfully demonstrated that an intelligently networked and controlled combination of electricity consumers and solar power producers can significantly increase self-sufficiency.

The NCCR members Luca Furieri and Maryam Kamgarpour have won the 2022 Best Paper Award in the IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems for the paper "Sparsity Invariance for Convex Design of Distributed Controllers" by Luca Furieri, Yang Zheng, Antonis Papachristodoulou and Maryam Kamgarpour.

Congratulations to our PI Srdjan Capkun who has just been named IEEE Fellow for his contributions to wireless and systems security

In today's episode of the InControl podcast host Alberto Padoan talks to Jean-Jacques Slotine (Director of the Nonlinear Systems Laboratory at MIT and Distinguished Faculty at Google AI) about his inspiring journey through nonlinear and adaptive control, complex networks, optimization and machine learning

NCCR Automation provides junior researchers with the means for funding activities related to research or NCCR structure-related activities (Communication, Education, Equal Opportunity and KTT).

Congratulations to NCCR members Kaveh Razavi, Michele Marazzi and Melanie Zeilinger who, along with their teams, have been presented with "Golden Owl" awards for innovative teaching by the student association of ETH Zurich.

NCCR Automation is opening its first call for research projects in collaboration with industry partners.