Bio-sketch
Associate Professor at the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering (DEI) of the University of Bologna since 2018, performing research in the fields of nonlinear control theory for finite and infinite dimensional systems, robotics, and industrial automation. Research interests lie particularly in the port-Hamiltonian theory of dynamical systems, in particular in modelling, simulation and control of infinite dimensional systems, and in the application of the port-Hamiltonian framework to robotics and mechatronics. Research works currently focusing on the topic of the synthesis of boundary control laws and stabilisation of PDEs in port-Hamiltonian forms, and on the development of energy-based control laws for robotic systems, including UAVs and telemanipulation devices.
Education
Degree in Computer Science Engineering, 2000, from the Department of Electronics, Computer Sci- ence and Systems (DEIS) of the University of Bologna, PhD in Automatic Control and Operational research with thesis titled “Port Hamiltonian systems. A unified approach for modelling and control finite and infinite dimensional physical systems,” 2003, from the same institution.
Academic career
After a post-Doc contract at the Department of Applied Mathematics (TW) of the University of Twente (The Netherlands) in 2003, cooperating with prof. A. van der Schaft and prof. S. Stramigioli, and a post-Doc contract at the Department of Electronics, Computer Science, and Systems (DEIS) of the University of Bologna in 2004, from 2005 Assistant Professor in subject area ING-INF/04 Automation at the Department of Electronics, Computer Science, and Systems (DEIS), now Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering (DEI), of the University of Bologna. Since 2012 he is member of board of the PhD degree in Automation and Operational Research of the University of Bologna, and from 2015 to 2018 of the board of the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Information Engineering (DEI). Since 2018, associated professor at the same department.
Scientific activities
Participation in numerous research programmes including, at international level, GEOPLEX “Geometric Network Modeling and Control of Complex Physical Systems,” eDIANA “Embedded Systems for Energy Efficient Buildings,” AIROBOTS “Innovative aerial service robots for remote inspections by contact,” and at national level MISTRAL, RAMSETE, AIDA, and OASYS. Visiting professor at the Tongji University in Shanghai (China) in 2009, 2010 and 2014, at the Institute of Automatic Control and Control Sys- tems Technology of the Johannes Kepler University Linz (Austria) in 2012, at the National Engineering Institute in Mechanics and Micro–Technologies (FEMTO-ST/AS2M) in Besançon (France) in 2014, and at the Institute of Cyber-Systems & Control of the Zhejiang University in Hangzhou (China) in 2015. Referee for international journals and conferences in the field of Automatic Control and Robotics, mem- ber of the IEEE CSS Conference Editorial Board, and IPC member of the IFAC Workshop on Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Methods in Nonlinear Control (LHMNLC), of the IFAC Workshop on Control of Sys- tems Governed by Partial Differential Equations (CPDE), and of the Automatica.it Conference. Since October 2019, Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, and since October 2020 for the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology. Invited speaker at several IEEE and IFAC conferences, and organiser of different invited sessions, mainly on modelling, simulation and control synthesis of port-Hamiltonian systems. Furthermore, plenary speaker at the 9th Workshop on Control of Distributed Parameter Systems, Beijing, 2015. He has been also co-supervisor of several PhD students in Automation and Operational Research of the University of Bologna, namely Dr. Luca Bassi (2006-08), Dr. Francesco Forte (2011-13), and Dr. Alberto Pepe (2014-16). Finally, he has been member of the PhD Commettee at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands), in 2010 (candidate T. Voss), in 2012 (candidate M. Seslija), and in 2014 (candidate M.M. Arias), at the Aalto University (Finland) in 2014 (candidate A. Aalto), and at the Institut Supérieur de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace (ISAE), Tolouse (France) in 2017 (candidate F.C. Ribeiro).
