IMPACT4Mech · Breaking frontiers of Internal Model Principle and Adaptive Control through hybrid Techniques for next-generation Mechatronics

This project will develop innovative control strategies for the mechatronic technologies of the next decade, bolstering the design of sustainable industrial, energy, and transportation systems. Motivated by the vast development gap between several emerging technologies, such as smart materials and additively manufactured systems, and the algorithms for their safe and high-performance operation, we aim to design control techniques to handle unconventional dynamics with impacts, discrete events, and hysteresis phenomena, including large disturbances and modeling uncertainties. Specifically, we propose to embrace the formalism of hybrid dynamical systems to achieve a quantum leap of internal model and adaptive control, leading to an impact for next-generation mechatronics. This aim represents an ideal evolution for the activities of the candidate fellow, Dr. Alessandro Bosso, in a perspective of knowledge consolidation and career development in the academic world. To this end, under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Tilli and the co-supervision of Prof. Lorenzo Marconi at the University of Bologna, the project foresees an intense training and research program, where the fellow will be mentored by leading experts in hybrid and mechatronic systems. During the outgoing phase, Dr. Bosso will be hosted for 16 months at the CCDC of UC Santa Barbara, a world-leading center in control research and related multi- disciplinary topics that formed many successful scientists in the field. There, the fellow will be supervised by Prof. Andrew R. Teel, a prominent researcher among the founders of hybrid systems theory. Then, a secondment period of 8 months is planned at the laboratories LAAS and LAPLACE of the CNRS in Toulouse, France, where Prof. Luca Zaccarian will guide the fellow in theoretical and applied research. Finally, the return phase will be dedicated to developing breakthrough laboratory prototypes and disseminating the results to the scientific and industrial communities.