IFAC World Congress
Summer School
Symposium at the occasion of prof.ir. O.H. Bosgra's 65th birthday
Elgersburg School on Mathematical Systems Theory
Staff news
PhD defences
Vacancies

Welcome to DISC Newsletter of June 2009. We plan to send out the Newsletter monthly. The next issue of this Newsletter will appear end of June 2009.

We encourage the contributors to provide essential information. In principle, we intend to publish any message offered. However, we reserve the right to edit certain parts of a submission.

Please send your contributions to: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Send the articles preferable in the English language. 

The Netherlands candidate for organizing the 20th IFAC World Congress 2017

The Netherlands is one of the three candidates for organizing the 20th IFAC World Congress in 2017. At the IFAC Council Meeting in London last friday, the proposals from the Netherlands, France and Japan were selected for a second and final round of decision to be made during the next Council Meeting in July 2010. Countries that did not make it to the final round are Australia, Canada, Germany and Turkey. The IFAC World Congress is the largest control conference worldwide, and is held every three years (Seoul, 2008; Milan 2011; Cape Town, 2014). The number of participants is approximately 3000. If the Dutch proposal is selected next year, the IFAC World Congress will be held in Amsterdam from 8-13 July 2017. During the London meeting the Dutch proposal was presented by Henk Nijmeijer and Paul Van den Hof.

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Summer School

The Summer School 2009 on Distributed Control and Estimation was held in NH Conference Centre Leeuwenhorst at Noordwijkerhout. It was nice to see how the participants and lecturers enjoyed the presentations, discussions and off course the nice environment.

Lecturers this year:
Bassam Bamieh - UC Santa Barbara, USA
Karl H. Johansson - Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
Cedric Langbort - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Reza Olfati-Saber - Dartmouth College, USA
Michael Rotkowitz - University of Melbourne, Australia 
Ming Cao - University of Groningen
Andrej Jokic - Eindhoven University of Technology
Tamas Keviczky - Delft University of Technology
Joris Sijs - TNO Science and Industry  

Unfortunately we have not enough room to publish all the pictures that were taken, so we give you a short impression.
Special thanks to all the people that send me the pictures and to the organizers Siep Weiland, Tamas Keviczky and Mircea Lazar








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Symposium at the occasion of prof.ir. O.H. Bosgra's 65th birthday

Symposium "Four decades of systems and control"
On Friday, September 18, 2009, a one-day symposium will be organized in the Aula of the Delft University of Technology at the occasion of prof. Okko Bosgra's 65th birthday. At the end of the one-day symposium, Okko will deliver his "Afscheidsrede", at 15:00h also in the Aula of TU Delft.

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Elgersburg School on Mathematical Systems Theory

The second ELGERSBURG SCHOOL on MATHEMATICAL SYSTEMS THEORY will take place in Elgersburg (Germany) from March 8 - 13, 2010 The lecturers and their topics are Volker Mehrmann (TU Berlin): Differential-Algebraic Equations - Control and Numerics Jan C. Willems (KU Leuven, Belgien): Behavioural Approach to Systems Theory The school is addressed to PhD students in control, either in mathematics or engineering, and also to very good undergraduates.
For more information check the website.

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Staff news

University of Groningen

Hello, my name is Gunn Kristine Holst Larsen and I am a new PhD student in the group of Discrete Technology and Production Automation at the University of Groningen. I did my BS in physics and MSc in experimental particle physics, both at the University of Oslo. Now I will work on “distributed control of micro chp systems” as a part of the Flexines project. The Flexines project is a collaboration between ECN, Gasunie Engineering and Technology, Hanzehogeschool, TNO-ICT, University of Groningen and some other partners.
Email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
Supervisor: prof.dr.ir. J.M.A. Scherpen and dr. N.D.van Foreest

Hi, I am Weiguo Xia from China. I became a phd student in May with the group of Discrete Technology and Production Automation in the university of Groningen. I received my Bsc and Msc degrees both in applied mathematics from Southeast University, China. The topic of my master thesis is “Synchronization of some complex dynamical networks and their applications with secure communications” . Now I am working on the Phd project “Cooperative control of autonomous robots”.
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Supervisor: Ming Cao

Delft University of Technology

On June 1st, 2009 Alessandro Abate started as Assistant Professor (UD).
I was born in Milano, and raised in Padova, Italy. I received the 'Laurea' (equivalent to an MSc.) degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Padova (also studying in Germany and in the US) in 2002, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from the University of California, at Berkeley, in 2004 and 2007 respectively. Thereafter, I have been a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University.
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As of June 2, 2009 Martijn Leskens started as a Post Doc.
Hi, my name is Martijn Leskens, 37 years young, married, father of two sons, born in The Hague and currently living in Rosmalen, which is in the south of the Netherlands next to ‘s-Hertogenbosch (which is well-known for its cathedral, Burgundy lifestyle and the painter Hieronymus Bosch). The last 10 years I have worked for TNO, which is a Dutch research organization of around 4500 employees, on control and related problems in the fields of waste combustion, oil and gas and Automotive. In particular, I have been working on (both linear and nonlinear) model predictive control and state estimation solutions for these fields of application. Alongside this work I have been trying to finish my PhD on the subject of “Nonlinear Model Predictive Control of MSWC plants”, which seems almost finished now. Since the 1st of June I have started as a post-doc at DCSC in the field of oil and gas (exploration and production) where I will try to solve control problems induced by the oil reservoirs being (more and more) located at awkward places such as at very deep places at sea.
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Supervisor: Paul Van den Hof

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PhD defences

University of Groningen

Speaker: Tudor Ionescu
Thesis: Balanced Truncation for Dissipative and Symmetric Nonlinear Systems.
Promotor: prof.dr.ir. Jacquelien M.A. Scherpen
Date: September 7, 2009
Location: Aula of the University of Groningen

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Vacancies

Delft University of Technology
Delft Center for Systems and Control

5 PhD Positions in Control for Smart Optics Systems The field of smart optics systems is characterized by the use of deformable mirrors, lenses and wavefront sensors and intelligent image processing to enhance the image quality in real-time of scientific observation equipment. The improvement of the resolution of images is crucial in all areas of image analysis, ranging from (biomedical) imaging, astronomy, lithography to optical communication and laser material processing. Sponsored by the Dutch National Science Foundation STW a program with 20 PhD students has been approved in November, 2008. Within this program new microscopic instruments, active mirrors for lithography, integrated image processing and active optics and active laser technology will be developed. In this programme there are currently 5 PhD positions in the field of systems and control available:
1 PhD student on Integrated High Resolution Observing through Turbulence, for information on this position refer to http://www.dcsc.tudelft.nl/Other/PhDvacIntegratedObservingTurbulence.pdf
2 PhD students on Metrology and Control for adaptive optics in lithography, for information on these positions refer to http://www.dcsc.tudelft.nl/Other/PhDvacMetrologyControl.pdf
1 PhD student on Integrated Smart Microscopy, for information on this position refer to http://www.dcsc.tudelft.nl/Other/PhDvacIntegratedSmartMicroscopy.pdf
1 PhD student on Smart Microscopy of Biological Tissues, for information on this position refer to http://www.dcsc.tudelft.nl/Other/PhDvacMicroscopyBiologicalTissues.pdf
For more information on the positions you can contact dr.ir. Rufus Fraanje (email: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it , phone: +31 15 278 5189 or +31 6 439 27 159).

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