Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:14 - Early steps in control 05:36 - L1 control 17:09 - Relay feedback systems 24:32 - Agile robotic maneuvers 29:31 - Abstractions and models 41:59 - Causality 49:35 - Markets and power grids 1:00:20 - Role of assumptions 1:05:03 - Data, systems, and society 1:16:17 - On writing 1:22:57 - Cascaded failures in networks 1:30:…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 00:49 - Early education and PhD in control 10:35 - Non-negative linear algebra & modelling uncertainty principle 22:50 - Influence of Willems & the Frisch scheme 34:27 - Subspace identification & stochastic behavioural system theory 38:39 - Stanford experience with Golub & Kailath 53:30 - Return to Leuven: LS-SVMs, quantum inf…

Outline 01:16 - Intro 02:28 - Early steps in Italy and California 13:00 - From Riemannian geometry … 17:01 - … to geometric control, robotics and locomotion 34:54 - Academic environment at Caltech 35:06 - From single robots to robotic networks 53:51 - Art gallery problem 1:01:37 - Networked and cyber-physical systems 1:21:47 - Contracting dynamics …

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:00 - From Boeing to Planetary Resources 08:57 - The origin of control videos 17:07 - About teaching style 20:52 - The (unnecessary?) math behind controls 26:54 - On interdisciplinarity 31:35 - How to build knowledge fast 48:32 - Resourcium 01:00:49 - The map of control theory 01:11:09 - IFAC Cartoons 01:15:35 - Fundamentals…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:17 - Early Years 04:17 - The “Scenic Route” to Control Theory 12:44 - Sampled Data Systems 22:26 - Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) Identification 28:07 - From Distributed Systems and PDEs ... 38:59 - ... to Distributed Control of Spatially Invariant Systems 49:02 - Taming the Navier-Stokes Equations 50:55 - Advice to Future …

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:28 - Platform-based design (PBD) in biology 16:42 - Cyberphysical systems, automotive industry, hybrid systems 27:32 - Contracts in system design 34:50 - Chiplets 41:48 - About time: the tag signal model 52:15 - Neuromorphics 59:21 - Innovative ecosystems 1:07:35 - Advice to future students 1:16:26 - The role of luck Links …

Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:40 - Classic Studies 06:51 - Early Steps in Berkeley between Optimization and Circuits Theory 16:04 - Back to Italy... and back to Berkeley 26:29 - The SPICE program and the interaction with IBM 33:30 - Logic Synthesis, Simulated Annealing, Timberwolf 40:57 - The Intel x386, YACR, and ESPRESSO 47:01 - The birth of Cadence a…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 00:58 - Early steps… in physics! 05:17 - AI in Edinburgh 08:00 - Connectionism 10:37 - Robot learning 19:02 - Imitation learning 23:00 - On pursuing a PhD 24:45 - Californian chronicles 30:10 - Modularity 33:20 - Challenges in robot learning 39:44 - Dexterous manipulation 43:52 - Dynamical systems 47:37 - Combining ML and cont…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:33 - Starling Flock Formations 07:17 - Harvesters ants in the desert 16:54 - Decision making in the natural world and opinion dynamics 32:08 - A geometric look at political polarization 36:50 - Control theory and dancing 53:25 - CreativeX 55:25 - On creativity 57:47 - Advice to future students Links Andrea Cavagna - http://…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:05 - Dancing and control theory 03:31 - Geometric control on Lie groups 09:14 - Underwater vehicles and geometric mechanics 18:45 - On the Hamiltonian framework 21:25 - Underwater field experiments in Monte Rey Bay 36:27 - Collective motion and coordination in animal groups 54:40 - Honeybees and bifurcation theory 1:03:36 -…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 00:47 - Mind the gap (metric) 03:16 - Moment problems and Nevanlinna interpolation 06:53 - “Everything relates to everything else” 11:27 - Distances between power spectra 16:08 - Optimal mass transport and Schrödinger bridges 32:25 - Sinkhorn iteration and Wasserstein geometry 37:45 - Color of turbulence 41:38 - Thermodynamics…

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:50 - Running marathons 05:19 - The Center 13:28 - On creativity 15:24 - From algebraic system theory to moment problems 43:39 - The gap metric 58:33 - The longstanding friendship and collaboration with M. Smith 01:11:30 - On causality and the arrow of time Links Tryphon’s website: https://georgiou.eng.uci.edu/ People in con…

In this episode, we dive into the world of flying robots with Davide Scaramuzza (University of Zürich), a leading expert in vision-based navigation, agile drone racing, perception-aware control, and the cutting-edge neuromorphic technology of event cameras. We explore the challenges of autonomous navigation in GPS-denied environments, the excitemen…

In this episode, we chat with Cleve Moler, a pioneer in numerical mathematics, creator of MATLAB and co-founder of MathWorks. We cover the birth of MATLAB, along with captivating stories about the origin of the iconic MathWorks logo, the enigmatic "why" command, the concept of "embarrassingly parallel computations," and the mysterious Pentium bug, …

In this episode, we chat again with John Doyle about the frontiers of control theory. Starting from the fascinating interplay between bacteria, physics, and the Internet, we explore the universal laws that govern complex systems. We discuss the inner workings of phenomena like earthquakes, wildfires, and sepsis, emphasizing the vital role of contro…

In this episode, we sit down with John Doyle, a living legend in the field of robust control, to delve into his incredible journey in control theory. We explore his past at MIT and Honeywell, his time at Berkeley, and his journey through the golden age of robustness. From his groundbreaking work on margins of systems, \mu synthesis, and the H_\inft…

In this episode, our guest is Mustafa Khammash. Mustafa is the director of the Control Theory and Systems Biology Lab at ETH Zürich and guides us in this episode as we explore Cybergenetics - the cutting-edge intersection of control theory and synthetic biology. From biomolecular control to antithetic motifs, we discuss real-world applications and …

In this episode, our guest is Stephen Boyd. Stephen is the Samsung Professor in the School of Engineering at Stanford University. Join as we dive deep into control, convex optimization, linear matrix inequalities, disciplined convex programming, teaching styles, and... rock & roll sound! Outline - 00:00 - Intro - 07:48 - Early years at Berkeley - 1…

Our guest in this episode is Rodolphe Sepulchre, Professor of Engineering at KU Leuven in the Deparment of Electrical Engineering (STADIUS) and at the University of Cambridge in the Deparment of Engineering (Control Group). We dive into Rodophe's scientific journey across nonlinear control, neuroscience and optimization on manifolds through the uni…

In this episode, our guest is Anuradha Annaswamy. Anu is the Director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory and Senior Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Deparment of Mechanical Engineering. We delve into adaptive control and its exciting history, ranging from the Brave Era to the audacious X15 tests and to m…

In this episode, our guest is Jean-Jacques Slotine, Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Information Sciences as well as Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Director of the Nonlinear Systems Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Distinguished Faculty at Google AI. We explore and connect a wide range of ideas from nonlinear and a…

In this episode, we delve into the extraordinary life of Norbert Wiener, the founding father of cybernetics - the science “control and communication in the animal and the machine”. Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:06 - The early years of Norbert 09:00 - Europe and WWI 15:50 - MIT days 19:30 - Norbert’s marriage 22:39 - Generalised harmonic analysis 28:18 -…

In this episode, our guest is Sean Meyn, Professor and Robert C. Pittman Eminent Scholar Chair in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Florida. The episode features Sean’s adventures in the areas of Markov chains, networks and Reinforcement Learning (RL) as well as anecdotes and trivia about beekeeping and jazz…

In this episode, our guest is Alessandro Chiuso. Alessandro is a Professor in the Department of Information Engineering at the University of Padova. The episode covers several topics, including Alessandro’s research trajectory, his work in system identification and vision, and his passion for skiing. Check out Alessandro’s website here: http://auto…

In this episode, our guest is Ben Recht. Ben is a Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. We discuss several topics, including his research trajectory, Ben's tour of reinforcement learning, and his passion for music, among others. Check out Ben's website here: http://peo…

This episode features an interview with Florian Dörfler, who is an Associate Professor at the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zürich, Switzerland. We discuss several topics, including his personal research trajectory, the influence of machine learning on control, future challenges in control theory, among others. Check out Florian's website her…

This episode breaks the ice with a bit of the pre-history of control theory. We discuss three iconic ancestors of the science of feedback, including water clocks developed by Ktesibios, the earliest known thermostat, and governors, a class of mechanical devices, which, without exaggeration, have enabled the first industrial Revolution in Britain. O…