Organization and Participants

Organisation

The Graduate School gathers Belgian teams (UAntwerpen, VUB, ULB, UGent, KU Leuven, ULiège, UCLouvain, UMONS, UNamur). Created in 2005, it essentially merges the Graduate School in Systems and Control (started in 1992 as an initiative of the Interuniversity Attraction Pole on Modelling, Simulation and Control of Complex Systems) with the Graduate Program in Mathematical Programming (sponsored by the FNRS as a 3rd cycle program since 1994). The participating teams are active in the area of Systems, Optimization, Control and Networks, or have strong interest in topics related to it.

A common research theme pursued by the participating teams consists in the modelling of certain systems and phenomena with the purpose of controlling or optimizing their behavior and performance.

These models are based on dynamical systems, differential (or difference) equations and mathematical programming formulations. Research of the participating teams focusses on the identification, analysis, control and optimization of these models, including the corresponding theory, algorithmic aspects and numerical resolution techniques.

This area of growing interest finds numerous applications in various fields such as automatic control, biotechnology and biomedical engineering, mechanical and electrical engineering, production and supply chain management and planning, process engineering, robotics, routing, traffic or service networks and signal processing.

 

Funding

The Graduate School gets yearly fundings from the FNRS and from the FSR (Fonds Spécial de Recherche - UCLouvain).

 

Steering Committee

A steering committee coordinates the teaching activities of the Graduate School.

The steering committee has at least one representative of each involved university.

The current steering committee is as follows : 

  • M. Ahookhosh, UAntwerp
  • P.-A. Absil, UCLouvain (director)
  • D. Bongartz, KU Leuven
  • L. De Lathauwer, KU Leuven
  • B. De Moor, KU Leuven
  • D. Dochain, UCLouvain 
  • F. Glineur, UCLouvain
  • M. Kinnaert, ULB
  • J. Lataire, VUB 
  • Q. Louveaux, ULiège
  • A. Mauroy, UNamur (co-director)
  • K. Meerbergen, KU Leuven
  • W. Michiels, KU Leuven
  • G. Pipeleers, KU Leuven
  • P. Sacré, ULiège
  • A. Sarlette, UGent
  • A. Vande Wouwer, UMONS
  • J. Winkin, UNamur

(November 28, 2022)

 

Objectives

The main objective of the Graduate School is to provide a high quality scientific environment and a well-balanced graduate-level program for the Belgian doctoral students in Systems, Optimization, Control and Networks.

Several activities are organized with the following objectives in mind.

The Graduate School

  • provides high level graduate training for doctoral students
  • builds a network of all Belgian research teams that are active in the area and improves their international visibility
  • organizes conferences and workshops in its area of interest
  • strengthens the links between Belgian teams via co-supervision of doctoral theses
  • interacts with European initiatives such as the Marie Curie exchange and training program
  • encourages student exchanges within national and international programs.

 

SOCN  aims at bringing together researchers in the field of Automatic Control in Belgium.

SOCN is the Belgian NMO (National Member Organization) of IFAC.

 

Doctoral training offered

The training activities take the following various forms:

 
  • Graduate level courses:
    About four courses a year are organized. These include lecture notes and evaluation facilities. Half of the courses are typically taught by invited lecturers. The courses are open to students from abroad. In order to foster interactions, the lectures take place on site and, by default, they cannot be attended remotely. On some occasions, recordings of the lectures may be offered, but the availability and the quality of such recordings is not guaranteed. 
     
  • Seminar series:
    Every partner organizes seminars on a regular basis. The information is centralized and advertized via this web site's home page.
     
  • Specialized workshops:
    Workshops on selected topics are occasionally organized. These workshops typically target a more specialized audience. Examples of past initiatives of this type are the Workshops on Dynamics and Computation, on Integrated Text and Data-Mining, a Summer school on Modern Convex Optimization and a NATO Advanced Study Institute on Learning Theory and Practice.
     
  • Scientific meetings:
    Meetings with a broader range of interest are organized on a regular basis. Examples are the annual Benelux Meetings on Systems and Control and the Han-sur-Lesse Mathematical Programming Conferences.
 

Participating Teams

The different universities and teams involved are listed below with keywords describing their research activities related to the themes of the graduate school and the name of the contact person.

UAntwerp

Applied Mathematics Group (Department of Mathematics)

Research activities: Huge-scale optimization, Nonsmooth and nonconvex optimization, Complexity analysis for structured optimization

Contact person: Masoud Ahookhosh

UNamur

NAXYS (Namur Institute for Complex Systems)

Research activities: optimization algorithms, evolutionary computing, artificial intelligence and robotics, optimal control, feedback control, dynamical system modelling and analysis, dynamics on networks

Contact person : Alexandre Mauroy 

 

UGent

BIOMATH (Model-based biosystems analysis and optimisation)

Research activities : system analysis, (bio)-chemical processes, system optimisation, sensitivity analysis (local/global), uncertainty analysis

Contact person: Ingmar Nopens

 

TELIN (Departement of Telecommunications and Information Processing)

Research activities : queueing theory, performance analysis of communication networks, operations research, branching processes

Contact person: Dieter Fiems

 

ELIS (Department of Electronics and Information Systems)

Research activities : nonlinear control theory, geometric control, filtering and state estimation, statistical decision problems, quantum control and quantum algorithms

Contact person : Alain Sarlette

 

KU Leuven

Chemical Engineering/CREaS

Research activities : biosystems modeling, process control, estimation methods, robustness analysis

Contact person : Dominik Bongartz

 

NUMA (Numerical Analysis and Applied Mathematics)

Research activities : numerical approximation, linear algebra, scientific computing, numerical integration, nonlinear equations, computational methods for control, scientific software

Contact person : Karl Meerbergen

 

ESAT - STADIUS Center for Dynamical Systems, Signal Processing and Data Analytics

Research activities : systems, models & control, numerical linear & multilinear algebra, complex networks & nonlinear systems, optimization, support vector machines & kernel methods, data-mining, information retrieval & knowledge discovery, bioinformatics & computational biology, visualization, digital signal processing for audio & telecom, biomedical data processing, multimodal data analysis

Contact person : Lieven De Lathauwer

 

MeBioS (Mechatronics, Biostatistics and Sensors)

Research activities : biological systems, automation, mechatronics, modelling

Contact person : Herman Ramon

 

PMA (Production Engineering, Machine Design, and Automation)

Research activities : modelling, identification, control, optimization, mechatronics, robotics

Contact person : Goele Pipeleers

 

UCLouvain

MEED

Research activities : design, modelling and optimization of mechatronic systems, multibody dynamics

Contact person : Paul Fisette

 

CESCM (CEnter for Supply Chain Management)

Research activities : operations research, mixed integer programming, networks, supply chain management

Contact person : Philippe Chevalier

 

CORE (Center for Operations Research and Econometrics)

Research activities : mixed integer programming, convex optimization, operations research, networks

Contact person : Anthony Papavasiliou

 

ICTEAM/INMA "Applied mathematics division, Institute of Information and Communication Technologies, Electronics and Applied Mathematics"

Research activities : systems and control theory, numerical linear algebra, neural networks, nonlinear control, networks, hybrid systems

Contact person : Raphaël Jungers

 
 

ULB

Algèbre et Combinatoire

Research activities : algorithms and geometric structures, polytopes, convex sets, combinatorial optimization

Contact person : Samuel Fiorini

 

GOM (Graphes et Optimisation Mathématique)

Research activities : mathematical programming, combinatorial optimization, networks and graphs

Contact person : Bernard Fortz

 

MECA (Active Structures Laboratory)

Research activities : active structural control and vibration damping, mechatronics, robotics, SMART structures

Contact person : André Preumont

 

SAAS (Automatique et analyse des systèmes)

Research activities : modelling, identification, control, fault detection, process industry

Contact person : Michel Kinnaert

 

ULiège

Quantom

Research activities : operations research, production management, combinatorial optimization, integer programming

Contact person : Yves Crama

 

Montefiore Institute

Research activities : artificial intelligence and machine learning, computer vision, signal processing and robotics, cybersecurity and computer systems, electric power and energy systems, electronic circuit design and sensors, high performance computing, materials for electrical engineering, neuroengineering, numerical simulation, optimisation and control, theoretical computer science

Contact person : Benoît Vanderheyden

ULiège/Montefiore Institute seminar series

 

UMons

AUTO (Unité d'Automatique)

Research activities : automatic control, bioprocess modeling,state estimation, robust control, vehicle positioning, numerical simulation

Contact person : Alain Vande Wouwer

 

MATHRO (Mathématique et Recherche Opérationnelle)

Research activities : operations research, production planning, multi-criteria optimization and decision, numerical linear algebra, continuous optimization

Contact person : Nicolas Gillis

 

VUB

ELEC (Fundamental Electricity and Instrumentation)

Research activities : identification, experiment design, estimation, linear and nonlinear systems

Contact person : John Lataire