Research Areas

The main aim of our research is to design decentralized and distributed control strategies to control the collective behavior of complex network systems. Our research is highly interdisciplinary and  focuses on the broad area of network science, dynamical systems and control. The major challenge  to uncover and exploit the interplay between, the inteconnecting structure and the collective behaviour of the ensemble. Particularly, we are interested in studying the mechanisms that allow large ensembles of interconected dynamical units to self-organize, evolve their network structure, and characterize their propensity to be controlled. 

The theoretical work is complemented by its validation and implementation in several real-world applications spanning from power systems to biological networks. 

We list below some of the specific research topics that are of our interest

• Network Synchronization

• Contraction Theory

• Human Coordination and Synchronization

• Leadership Emergence in Networks

• Network Identification 

• Network Evolution

• Pinning Control and leader-follower coordination

• Distributed Control

• Network Controllability

Synthetic Biology is an emerging field of research whose aim is to endow living cells with new functionalities with applications ranging from healthcare (personalized therapies) to industry and biotechnology (biomaterials, batch fermentation etc). Our group is focusing on the development of modelling, design and feedback control techniques for synthetic biological applications with particular attention to the exploitation of synthetically engineered microbial consortia. A microbial consortium is made of different cellular populations, each with a different role. 

Challenges in the development (and validation) of microbial consortia include the design of Gene Regulatory Networks (GRNs) that cooperate to achieve a common goal, the maintenance of a stable coexistence between different populations, and the development of technologies for the in-vivo validation and prototyping of the proposed designs. 

Recent projects we are involved with include:

• The design of a feedback control loop with biological components

• The design of multicellular control for cell populations

• The realization of techniques for the regulation of relative population numbers in consortia (ratiometric control)

• The development of experimental platforms for in-vivo control experiments where more population can be cocultured

Our approach combines in-silico mathematical predictions, to laboratory activities aimed at the implementation and the in vivo testing of the designed synthetic circuits. Specifically, we make use of an advanced agent-based simulation framework (BSim) to test our designs in silico, and of a cutting-edge microfluidics experimental platform, together with the turbidostat we proposed, to validate our circuits in vivo.

We are constantly improving the tools (improvement of simulation and image processing software packages) as well as methods and techniques employed in our research (design of innovative microfluidic devices) in order to meet  the demanding and stimulating challenges we encounter daily in our research activity.

Check here the proceedings of a recent tutorial workshop on control in synthetic biology held at the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2019 in Nice, France.

Many dynamical systems that occur naturally in the description of physical processes are piecewise-smooth (PWS). That is, their motion is characterized by periods of smooth evolutions interrupted by instantaneous events, such as impact, switching, sliding and other discrete state transitions. These phenomena arise in any application involving friction, collision, intermittently constrained systems or processes with switching components. For example, in mechanical systems with impacts and friction, power converters with switching elements, gene regulatory networks, and many others. 

Discontinuities are also designed intentionally in regulation and stabilization problems, not only as an alternative to classical smooth control but also because many control systems cannot be stabilized by continuous state-dependent feedback. Examples of discontinuous control range from relay control to sliding mode control, from switched control to hybrid control. 

We list below some of the specific research topics that are of our interest: 

• Analysis of discontinuity-induced bifurcation 

• Incremental and differential stability analysis 

• Synchronization in networks of PWS systems 

• Adaptive control of PWS systems 

• Switched control design 

• State observer design