The European Control Conference offers pre-conference workshops addressing current and future topics in control systems from experts from academia, research institutes, and industry. Pre-conference workshops cover material or use presentation formats that are not found within the main conference to increase the interest for the event, enhance interaction and discussion amongst participants, and make useful connections to fields outside of control.

ECC22 workshops will be held in a hybrid format, both at the conference venue and online (in live streaming), on the 12th of July 2022, the day before the official opening of the conference. Advanced registration for pre-conference workshops can be done online via the conference registration system.

Main conference registration is a prerequisite for registering at ECC workshop.

Important: please note that you can register for only 1 workshop because all workshops take place simultaneously. Recordings of workshops will not normally be made.

Information about the costs of attending a pre-conference workshop and how to register is available in the conference registration page.

The list of confirmed workshops is reported below. For further information contact the conference Workshops Chair, prof. Visakan Kadirkamanathan.

ECC22 will host the following four confirmed workshops.

1. July 12th 2022 – (Half Day – Afternoon) Future Automotive Systems: Modeling, Design and Control
2. July 12th 2022 – (Full Day) Control, Estimation and Modelling Practice for Robotic Applications in Challenging Environments
3. July 12th 2022 – (Full Day) Rigidity Theory applied to Dynamic Systems: from Parallel Robots to Multi-Agent Formations
4. July 12th 2022 – (Half Day – Afternoon) Machine learning in smart energy systems

Future Automotive Systems: Modeling, Design and Control

Date & Time:

Tuesday, July 12, 2022 @ 13:00-17:45 (Half Day – Afternoon)

Location:

Room 403A – Electrical and Electronic Engineering Building
Imperial College London

How to Register:

Papercept

Organizers:

Mauro Salazar, Theo Hofman.

Abstract:

The automotive industry is undergoing an extensive powertrain transformation process: Conventional engines are being hybridized whilst full-electric vehicles are slowly pervading the market. Different powertrain and energy-carrier technologies are being investigated for applications ranging from passenger cars to heavy-duty trucks, whilst sophisticated control algorithms are being studied to
minimize their environmental impact.
As we strive for a transition towards a zero-emissions mobility, it becomes more critical that we answer questions about the future of automotive systems:
• How can we design powertrains that are sustainable and market-competitive?
• How can we leverage recent advances in vehicles’ autonomy and connectivity, as well as in onboard
sensors’ availability and computational power to improve their performance?
• How can we attain a zero-emissions well-to-kilometers mobility?
• How can we ensure smooth deployment and integration into the existing infrastructure?
• How will this affect the transportation infrastructure at large?
This workshop will gather experts from automotive, mechanical, electrical and control engineering, in order to:
1. identify challenges and opportunities for the future of automotive;
2. identify modeling, design and control methodologies to address them;
3. share insights from early deployments and turn such insights into an actionable research roadmap.

Program:

The detailed programme of this workshop is available here

Control, Estimation and Modelling Practice for Robotic Applications in Challenging Environments

Date & Time:

Tuesday, July 12, 2022 @ 09:00-16:00 (Full Day)

Location:

Room 509A- Electrical and Electronic Engineering Building
Imperial College London

How to Register:

Papercept

Organizers:

Kaiqiang Zhang, Alexandru Stancu, Guido Herrmann.

Abstract:

Robotic systems have been considered as adequate solutions for various challenging applications, e.g., manipulation in space, investigations of oceans, decommissioning of nuclear facilities, remote maintenance of fusion reactors, etc. In contrast to common robotic applications, robotic systems need to be developed to tackle different specific practical issues caused by challenging environments. These challenging environments will significantly limit the choice of actuating mechanisms, the availability of sensing information and so on. Also, the environmental factors, such as radiation flux, extreme thermo-changes, etc., will strongly impact the system’s dynamics and, therefore, the control performance. Thus, it is necessary to develop advanced control algorithms, estimation methods and efficient modelling approaches, motivated for tackling various practical issues.
This workshop focuses on the control, estimation, and modelling techniques developed for practical robotic applications in challenging environments. The workshop hosts expert speakers from various reputed institutions in Germany, France, Italy, Spain and the UK, leading the associated research fields across Europe.
The talks will give a glance into solutions for practical control problems about remote operations in nuclearfusion engineering, robotics for nuclear-decommissioning, motion-control of orbital space robots, underwater localisation of marine robots, and aero-vehicles in extreme weather. The workshop will call for attendees, including researchers and industrial representatives, working in the relevant application fields. This allows the
control experts to disseminate special experiences in resolving real-world challenges. Thus, connections and
collaborations can be established between researchers and engineers together to solve forthcoming and
future challenges in deploying robotics under extreme environments, via advanced control techniques.

Program:

The detailed programme of this workshop is available here.

Rigidity Theory applied to Dynamic Systems: from Parallel Robots to Multi-Agent Formations

Date & Time:

Tuesday, July 12, 2022 @ 08:30-17:00 (Full Day)

Location:

Room 403B – Electrical and Electronic Engineering Building
Imperial College London

How to Register:

Papercept

Organizers:

Giulia Michieletto, Angelo Cenedese.

Abstract:

Rigidity theory constitutes a branch of knowledge investigating the (structural) properties necessary for multi-element systems to preserve the inter-unit connections under deformations. This turns out to be a formal as well as a valid tool for understanding how pairwise geometrical constraints (e.g., relative distances or angles) can affect the mobility or state (pose) estimation and control of dynamic systems composed of multiple connected elements. In light of this fact, this workshop aims at encouraging the discussion between robotics and control communities. The intent is to figure out the similarities emerging in the rigidity-based estimation and control tasks related to both parallel robots and multi-agent formations, given that these two types of dynamic systems can be interpreted as multi-element architectures wherein the inter-unit connections are
physical and virtual, respectively. This workshop is in continuity with the two previous ones titled “Rigidity Theory for Multi-agent Systems Meet Parallel Robots – Towards the Discovery of Common Models and Methods”, organized the first during the IFAC WC Congress in July 2017 in Toulouse and the second as an under-invitation event in November 2018 in Nantes. Specifically, the former intended to provide a high-level overview (in terms of open problems, tools, methods, ideas) of the parallel robots and multi-agent formations worlds; the latter focused on the nature of the constraints characterizing both the aforementioned types of multi-element dynamic systems. With these premises, the purpose of this third workshop is to draw out the rigidity-based techniques that turn out to be beneficial for the emerging applications in both the robotics and control communities.

Program:

The final programme is available here.

Machine Learning in Smart Energy Systems

Date & Time:

Tuesday, July 12, 2022 @ 13:00-17:30 (Half Day – Afternoon)

Location:

Room 509B – Electrical and Electronic Engineering Building
Imperial College London

How to Register:

Papercept

Organizers:

Kang Li, Zhengtao Ding.

Abstract:

The landscape of a future energy system running almost entirely on clean and renewable sources will be quite different from today’s experience. Variable renewable generations and energy storage systems connected at all voltage levels, electrification of industry, transportation, and domestic heating, along with the digitalization of the grid with smart metering, smart sensors, and other digital solutions is making the whole power and energy systems overwhelmingly complex and data abundant. It is necessary to leverage the latest progresses in machine learning to address the operation and control issue of such a complex system. The aim of this workshop is to showcase some of the latest machine-learning driven operation and control techniques and their successful applications across the energy chain, covering renewable power generation and integration, power system stability analysis and wide area monitoring, microgrids and energy storage systems, decarbonization of end users from different sectors – multi-energy systems for buildings, transportation, and industry.

Program:

A preliminary programme can be downloaded from here.