Speakers at Mini-workshop for Associate Professor recruitment
Programme:
10.00 – 10.20 Christos Verginis
10.30 – 10.50 Helon Vicente Hultmann Ayala
11.00 – 11.20 Luis Pablo Borja Rosales
11.30 – 11.50 Alessandro Vittorio Papadopoulos
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10.00 – 10.20 Christos Verginis
Speaker: Christos Verginis, Uppsala University, Sweden
Title: Planning and control of robotic systems under uncertain dynamics
Abstract: Motion and task planning of single- and multi-robot systems constitutes one of the most popular and fundamental topics in robotics. It entails the successful navigation of the robots in obstacle-cluttered environments while avoiding collisions with each other and environmental obstacles. At the same time, a large variety of robotic systems evolve subject to nonlinear dynamics (a.k.a differential constraints) that are often a priori uncertain or entirely unknown, stemming from parameters (geometric, dynamic) that cannot be accurately identified or operating in environments that are uncertain. Such uncertainties significantly complicate the motion-planning problem since they jeopardise the safety of the system. In this talk, I will talk about robust and adaptive control strategies and how they can be integrated with motion-planning techniques in order to guarantee safe single and multi-robot navigation in obstacle-cluttered environments while tackling dynamic uncertainties. The talk will focus particularly on complex structures such as robotic manipulators as well as teams of multiple mobile robots.
Bio: Christos K. Verginis is an assistant professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Uppsala University. He received his Ph.D. in automatic control from KTH Royal Institute of Technology in 2020. Before joining Uppsala University in 2022, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin. His research interests include planning and control of multi-robot systems, safety-critical and adaptive control of uncertain nonlinear systems, temporal-logic-based planning, and reinforcement learning. His Ph.D. thesis received the EECI award for the best thesis in control of complex and heterogeneous systems and was a finalist for the George Giralt Ph.D. award in Robotics. He currently serves as an associate at IEEE Transactions on Robotics and has published more than 60 papers in journals and conference proceedings.
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10.30 – 10.50 Helon Vicente Hultmann Ayala
Speaker: Helon Vicente Hultmann Ayala, PUCPR, Brazil
Title: Physics-First Residual Training for Hybrid Neural ODEs: Quantifying and Preserving Interpretability
Abstract: Hybrid Neural Ordinary Differential Equations (NODEs) offer a promising framework for nonlinear system identification, but joint training of physical and neural components can cause the neural residual to dominate the state update, undermining interpretability. This talk presents a NODE pipeline that prioritizes a transparent mechanistic core through serial, physics-first residual training: physical dynamics are encoded directly in the state equation and incrementally augmented by neural corrections, so that model complexity grows without discarding physical structure. A pertinency metric is introduced to quantify the relative influence of physical and neural contributions during rollout simulation. The method is validated on a reproducible benchmark built from new closed-loop experimental data of a friction-affected electromechanical positioning system. Results show that hybrid models reduce predictive error by up to 27 % relative to matched physics-only baselines while outperforming a fully black-box NODE, confirming that physical priors improve generalization. The analysis reveals that physics-first training preserves physical dominance, whereas joint training tends to shift model responsibility to the neural residual.
Bio: Helon Vicente Hultmann Ayala is a Professor and Research Scientist with over 15 years of experience spanning academia and industry. He is an Associate Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Paraná (PUCPR), Brazil, and a Research Productivity Fellow of Brazil's National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq). His applied research background includes positions at IBM Research (Natural Resources Analytics), Embraer (simulation and control of pneumatic/hydraulic systems), and ZF Friedrichshafen in Germany (modeling and control of limited-slip differentials); he previously also served as a Professor at PUC-Rio. He was recently a visiting researcher at the FAU DCN-AvH group at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg under an ERC/CNPq agreement, where this present work was developed, focused on hybrid system identification, machine learning, and model predictive control.
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11.00 – 11.20 Luis Pablo Borja Rosales
Speaker: Luis Pablo Borja Rosales, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom
Title: Passivity-based control of physical systems
Abstract: This talk will provide an introduction to passivity-based control, covering basic aspects of this nonlinear control design framework and how these techniques can be employed to control physical systems. In particular, we will discuss two approaches to perform energy shaping and damping injection, and provide insight into which strategy to use depending on the task at hand.
Bio: Pablo Borja received his bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and his master's degree in Electrical Engineering from the National Autonomous University of Mexico in 2011 and 2013, respectively. He then obtained his PhD in Control Systems Engineering from Paris-Sud University (now Paris-Saclay), France, in 2017. From 2017 to 2022, Pablo was affiliated with the Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. First as a postdoctoral researcher, then as a Faculty of Science and Engineering Fellow. From 2021 to 2022, Pablo worked as a senior postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Cognitive Robotics at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. Since October 2022, he has been a lecturer in Control Systems Engineering at the University of Plymouth, United Kingdom. His research interests include passivity-based control, energy-based modeling of physical systems, autonomous systems, model reduction, soft robotics, and nonlinear control applications.
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11.30 – 11.50 Alessandro Vittorio Papadopoulos
Speaker: Alessandro V. Papadopoulos, Mälardalen University, Sweden
Title: From Passive Monitoring to Resilient Control Under Cyberattacks
Abstract: This talk presents recent methods for making control systems resilient to adversarial attacks on sensing and data. We consider stealthy integrity attacks that can evade classical residual-based detectors, yet still degrade performance or destabilize the closed loop. The presentation highlights three complementary directions: active defense for robotic manipulators through anomaly-aware command scaling, hidden gain modulation for improving attack detectability in linear cyber-physical systems, and resilient data-driven controller design under poisoned input-output samples. Together, these works show how control architectures can move beyond passive monitoring toward resilience by design.
Bio: Alessandro V. Papadopoulos is Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Mälardalen University (MDU). He serves as Vice-Director of the Mälardalen University Automation Research Center (MARC) and Scientific Leader of Applied AI at MDU. His research spans control, robotics, cyber-physical systems, and resilient intelligent systems. He has held visiting positions at the University of Málaga, Spain (2023–2025) and the University of Bologna, Italy (2026).