Advanced Methods in Control

AA 2025-26
for any other year please go here: https://sites.google.com/diag.uniroma1.it/amc-master-ce/home

Master Theses opportunities

• Are you a Control Engineering student seeking a challenging and rewarding master's thesis project?

• If you are passionate about pushing the boundaries of nonlinear modeling, design, and control of complex aerial robotic systems, we invite you to explore this exciting opportunity.

• Attend the AMC class and ask Prof. Franchi directly in person or via email at any time to discuss your potential contribution to this groundbreaking research.

• Possibility to do part of the thesis abroad in the Netherlands.

Announcements

• 2026/01/23: The ~24 lectures will be every Tuesday's 10AM-1PM room A3 (DIAG) and Thursday's 12PM-3PM room A4 (DIAG)
  The first lecture is planned on Thursday 23/02/2026
  The last lecture is planned on Thursday 28/05/2026

• 2026/01/23: to be enrolled to the class and access all the material and info ask to join the google group: advanced-methods-in-control-2025-26@diag.uniroma1.it using you student uniroma1 email

General Info

Class name: Advanced Methods in Control (10592976)
University: Sapienza University of Rome
Master's name: Control Engineering
Master's Year: 2nd year, 2nd semester
Academic Year: 2025-2026,
Language: English

Logistics

Schedule: every Tuesday's 10AM-1PM room A2 (DIAG) and Thursday's 12PM-3PM room A4 (DIAG). First lecture on Thursday 23/02/2026, last lecture on Thursday 28/05/2026

Teacher: Prof. Antonio Franchi. Office:  A-211 (DIAG)

Collaborators from the University of Twente, Netherlands:  Mirko Mizzoni and Prof. Federico Califano
Office hours: by appointment, contact the teacher

Communication

General communication is done through the group https://groups.google.com/u/0/a/diag.uniroma1.it/g/advanced-methods-in-control-2025-26
How to join the group:  ask to join using the usual procedure and your institutional student email, only in that case you can be authorized

Learning Material and Lecture Syllabus

In the shared folder: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11RVN_uo4j9rZqyly2f3uwSJxBA13H1xn?usp=sharing
How to get access to the folder: join the google group (see above)

Objectives of the class

Main objectives

• Introduce the students to Energy-based port-Hamiltonian methods for the design of controllers for lumped-parameter multi-physical systems (electrical, mechanical, thermodynamical, ...)

• Geometric control on Lie Groups

Subgoals

• Introduction to  advanced linear algebra  and  differential geometry 

• Introduction to the geometric port-Hamiltonian framework and to bond-graphs

• Introduction to main port-Hamiltonian control methods such as 

  • Energy shaping Passivity Based Control (ES-PBC), 

  • Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity Based Control (IDA-PBC), 

  • Control by Interconnection

• Provide concrete real-life case-study of 

  • bond-graph modelling, and 

  • energy-based and geometric control of aerial systems

  Content of the class

1. Mathematical background

   • linear/multilinear algebra vector/tensors

   • differential geometry

2. Port-based modeling of systems

   • general modeling philosophy

   • introduction to the concept of port, of storage/dissipation elements, and power continuous/preserving interconnection

   • use of bond graphs as natural visualization of a port-based system

   • instantiation of general concepts to physical systems

   • examples of multiphysical systems

3. Port-based control 

   • Energy shaping Passivity Based Control (ES-PBC)

   • Interconnection and Damping Assignment Passivity Based Control (IDA-PBC)

   • Control by Interconnection

4. Applications

   • Bond Modeling Appications

   • Geoemetric Control in Flying Robotics

Useful References

• Lecture Notes (this is the main reference for studying)

  • provided in the shared folder (see above)

Additional references:

• Books:

  • Duindam, V., Macchelli, A., Stramigioli, S., & Bruyninckx, H. (Eds.). (2009). Modeling and control of complex physical systems: the port-Hamiltonian approach. Springer Science & Business Media.

  • Bullo F. and Lewis. A. D., (2005) Geometric Control of Mechanical Systems, Modeling, Analysis, and Design for Simple Mechanical Control Systems, Springer

  • A. van der Schaft and D. Jeltsema. Port-Hamiltonian Systems Theory: An Introductory Overview. Foundations and Trends in Systems and Control, vol. 1, no. 2-3, pp. 173–378, 2014.

  • Rashad, R. (2021). Energy-based modeling and control of interactive aerial robots: A geometric port-Hamiltonian approach. PhD Thesis

• Articles:

• Ortega, R., Van Der Schaft, A. J., Mareels, I., & Maschke, B. (2001). Putting energy back in control. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, 21(2), 18-33.

• Ortega, R., & Garcia-Canseco, E. (2004). Interconnection and damping assignment passivity-based control: A survey. European Journal of control, 10(5), 432-450.

• Califano, F., Rashad, R., Secchi, C., & Stramigioli, S. (2022). On the use of energy tanks for robotic systems. arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.17033.

• Rashad, R. , Bicego, D., Zult, J., Sanchez-Escalonilla, S., Jiao, R. , Franchi, A. , & Stramigioli, S. (2022). Energy Aware Impedance Control of a Flying End-effector in the Port-Hamiltonian Framework. IEEE transactions on robotics, 38(6), 3936-3955. [9813358]. https://doi.org/10.1109/TRO.2022.3183532