Buildings today are complex concatenations of structures, systems and technology. Each of the components inside a building has been developed and improved, allowing to select lighting, security, heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems independently. Smart buildings use information technology during operation to connect such subsystems, so that they can share information to optimize total building performance. Modern buildings also contain complex mechanical devices, sophisticated control systems and a suite of features to improve the safety, comfort and productivity of occupants.

The research focuses on the modeling, estimation, control and optimization of smart energy grids in the presence of renewable energy sources and dynamic prosumers. In particular, particular emphasis is placed on the impact of unreliable communication (packet loss and random delay), clock synchronization errors, safety constraints, multiple objectives, and non-rational prosumers. Ongoing research projects are the following:

This research is focused on the modeling and control of terrestrial and aerial unmanned vehicles and ranges from the identification of the system to the design of control laws for autonomous operation of the vehicle both as a single unit and in cooperation with other agents of the same or different nature. Ongoing research activities include:

Focus of the research activity is the development of advanced modeling and control approaches for mechatronic systems, in an integrated approach where the interplay of components of different nature is taken into consideration since the early development stages. Integration of hardware and embedded software components is a specific feature of the design approach. The research activities include:

The research focuses on multi-agent robotics for exploration, map building and patrolling of unstructured and unknown environments. In particular, we are interested in understanding the benefits of the use of multiple cooperating robots in terms of improved localization from relative measurements, reduced time-to-map and scalability. Other fundamental aspects under investigation are robustness to unreliable communication and scalability. Ongoing research projects are the following:

The research focuses on quantum systems, their control and the emerging applications in information technologies. In particular, we are interested in probabilistic models for quantum noise and quantum feedback, generation of entangled states (i.e. states that exhibit multi-system quantum correlations, not reproducible using classical variables) on networks of systems, and quantum walks on graphs. Key aspects include assessing scalabiltiy, speed and robustness of the control strategies. Ongoing research projects aim to study:   

Spectral estimation is the science of building models in the frequency domain from measured data. Our research focuses on the development of spectral estimation techniques building models with high resolution in prescribed frequency bands.