Épisodes

  • Keyan Miao (Interfacing Control with Neural ODEs)

    Keyan Miao (Interfacing Control with Neural ODEs)
    Oct 1 2026
    In this episode I got to chat with the incredibly wonderful Dr Keyan Miao about the fascinating work she’s done on neural ODEs. We discuss applying control theoretic tools to optimise neural ODEs, as well as their use for both controller and observer design. And in case that wasn’t already enough we also touch on dissipativity, Koopman operators, and reinforcement learning! You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iI0swQSnNEqgGQgf7og8udRV3IBCXbbfEkLFlolGxEU/edit?usp=sharingFollow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/ Join the live recording on 20th October 2026!https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S9X66_Wfzc( 9:30 PDT, 12:30 ET, 16:30 UTC, 17:30 BST, 18:30 CEST)ReferencesKeyan Miao: https://kymiao.github.io/Richard Vinter: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/r.vinter QianXiao Li from NUS and Wei-Nan Er from Princeton: https://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume18/17-653/17-653.pdfhttps://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40687-018-0172-yhttps://ems.press/journals/jems/articles/5404458 Book on control theory/ philosophy: https://apac.ee.kntu.ac.ir/publications/books/control-systems-a-historical-and-philosophical-perspective/Control theory/ philosophy article: https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/control-theory-philosophical-lens-languageNCCR automation fellowship: https://nccr-automation.ch/research-fellowshipAndreas Krause: https://las.inf.ethz.ch/krausea Steve Brunton ResNet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1UsKanMatM&t=911sOriginal neural ODE paper: https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2018/file/69386f6bb1dfed68692a24c8686939b9-Paper.pdfSpeeding up Neural ODE training and inference: https://proceedings.mlr.press/v235/miao24a.html Neural ODE review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950550X25000263Review of Neural ODEs in biomedical engineering: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-bioeng-110824-124907 Neural ODEs for observer design paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.00866 Non-linear observer review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367578821000948 Neural ODEs for control design papers: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17139 Survey on CBFs: https://coogan.ece.gatech.edu/papers/pdf/amesecc19.pdf Koopman operator paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.07294 Combining neural ODEs with RL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231225007131 Neural ODE dissipativity paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109826003043 Papers on Neural Network Verification: HuanZhang (UIUC)https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2018/file/d04863f100d59b3eb688a11f95b0ae60-Paper.pdfhttps://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2021/file/fac7fead96dafceaf80c1daffeae82a4-Paper.pdfhttps://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.26577 Papers on Direct NN parameterization: Ian Manchester (USyd)and Patricia Pauli (Eindhoven)https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9319198https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22258https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/wang23v.htmlhttps://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9867842 Ricky Chen: https://rtqichen.github.io/Flow matching paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02747 Antonis Papachristoudolou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulouCarmen Amo Alonso episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/393QBgVgsQwgh4wKj1bcLy
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    1 h et 1 min
  • IFAC World Congress Special

    IFAC World Congress Special
    Sep 1 2026
    In this episode I take you with me to the 2026 IFAC World Congress in Busan, South Korea, where I got to talk to a bunch of wonderful control researchers about their work. We cover a wide range of fascinating research areas, including observer design for transportation, event-triggered control, consensus control, extremum-seeking, robotic manipulation, control education and outreach, and a whole lot more! You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XE4krcWk6KgQjUUtgxKejmsTBYTermPeL9e3uVOnRJQ/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/ReferencesWorkshopsArun Tangirala: https://arunkt-dev.github.io/Prem Jagadeesan: https://www.amrita.edu/faculty/prem-jagadeesan/Paper on defining sloppiness: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282609Tom Oomen: https://toomen.eu/MondayinControl podcast: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/ Selsabil Bougherara: https://www.uphf.fr/lamih/membres/bougherara_selsabilShengya Meng: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shengya-meng-1b299a294/Laura Albert: https://engineering.wisc.edu/directory/profile/laura-albert/TuesdayYing Tan: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/28203-ying-tanMiroslav Krstic inControl interview: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/16954129-ep31-miroslav-krstic-nonlinear-adaptive-control-pdes-delays-extremum-seeking-safety-neural-operators-for-controlESC paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4177053 WednesdayFrank Park: https://me.snu.ac.kr/en/snu__professor/park-frank-chongwoo/Talk on geometric methods for robot learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIKZzlomGIYPritesh Patel: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/667tf7/doctor-pritesh-patelPaper on stability of adaptive control of switched systems: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751570X25000457 Interview with Brian Douglas: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHalNikwist: https://www.nikwist.be/David Tinoco: https://dtinas10.github.io/homepage/Quantum control podcast episodes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t577mI6iCh6ypd40nMxBQhttps://open.spotify.com/episode/31XLcllhy4XK7gQ9NnDGfzOlaf Stursberg:  https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/sections/control-and-system-theory/team/prof-stursberg.html Sudhanshu Shekhar: https://www.iitk.ac.in/sudhanshu-shekharSonia Martinez: http://muro.ucsd.edu/sonia/Overview of coverage control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.13890 Paper on optimal transport: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8619816 ThursdayArkadeep Saha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkadeep-saha-1b1a84252/Steve Brunton SINDy videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSCa78TIldgOpen source soft robotic platform: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5609765https://github.com/ReshapeTUe/Soft-Legged-Wheel-TestbedNicolás Faedo: https://www.polito.it/en/staff?p=nicolas.faedoEmilia Fushimi: http://www.gca.ing.unlp.edu.ar/?q=fushimiTore Gude: https://www.ntnu.no/ansatte/tore.gudeFridayDan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobson/profileview/edit/Cristina Stoica: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/en/u/stoica-cristina/IFAC youTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ifacyoutube3132OosCar non-linear control video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaOk003CiqAArt and control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awx-LOdbNH8Rebecca Thien: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/en/u/thien-rebbecca-tze-yean/Kuberknots podcast: https://kuberknots.com/ IET travel support: https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/awards-prizes-and-scholarships/travel-awards
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    1 h et 5 min
  • Francesca Boem (Distributed Monitoring and Attack Detection)

    Francesca Boem (Distributed Monitoring and Attack Detection)
    Aug 1 2026

    In this episode I had the pleasure of talking to the fantastic Francesca Boem about her work on monitoring networked systems, approaches to detecting faults and cyber attacks, as well as her new start-up helping to ensure the security of wireless health-tech devices!

    You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ttf7raapfDW4_aj3mnD8mSoy704d9T9BLnJk9QXbLqM/edit?usp=sharing

    Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

    Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

    Drop me an email if you’re attending IFAC WC: L.Hodgins@soton.ac.uk

    References

    Francesca Boem: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/65682-francesca-boem

    PhD thesis: https://www.openstarts.units.it/entities/publication/c9e28dd2-a9f3-4deb-bfb9-886a8f5d1661/details

    Thomas Parisini: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/t.parisini

    Distributed fault detection paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6580380

    Detectability of cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8264562

    Cyber attack detection for microgrids: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9054955

    Detecting covert cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9104026

    Detecting replay attacks: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.00737

    Fault-tolerant control/ active fault diagnosis: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8700304

    CONTROL 2026 episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MTAxQo4PlTC0zo7OcYRB4

    BLE vulnerabilities paper: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212293/1/ISCAS_2025_V4.pdf

     GiancarloFerrari Tricate: https://people.epfl.ch/giancarlo.ferraritrecate

    KIOS centre: https://www.kios.ucy.ac.cy/
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    1 h
  • CONTROL 2026 (ACE Network/ UKACC Conference Special)

    CONTROL 2026 (ACE Network/ UKACC Conference Special)
    Jul 1 2026
    In this episode I have the pleasure of attending the CONTROL2026 conference, and bring you along with me! This conference was the largest gatheringof control engineers in the UK recent years, co-organized by the ACE network and UK Automatic Control Council (UKACC). Join me as I explore the ACE network and some of the fabulous control engineering research taking place across theUK!Join the ACE network!: ⁠https://ukcontrol.org/join-ace You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1131VDAX37W9GOJ87c0PZqXt83VMds1rAdapr1HdgN3Q/edit?usp=sharing Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/ ReferencesControl 2026: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/Conference proceedings: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Control-2026-Proceedings-Booklet.pdfACE network: https://ukcontrol.org/UKACC: https://ukacc.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/IFAC: https://www.ifac-control.org/Pramod Khargonekar: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/khargonekar/Slides from his talk: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/yaf5rkNorbert Weiner: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norbert-WienerAutomony vs automation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-020-01004-zInControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/11513053-ep6-norbert-wiener-and-cyberneticsMacy Conference proceedings: http://cybernetic-bookshelf.org:8083/book/2636Dartmouth conference: https://opendigitalai.org/en/the-dartmouth-conference-1956-the-big-bang-of-ai/John McCarthy: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-McCarthyDaniel Coca: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/danielcoca.htmlEPSRC: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/Interview with Andy Lawrence: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BvPXw3YyoqdsvbQ573OF1William Heath: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/staff/scse/william-heath-680178/enAlessandro Astolfi: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.astolfiAntonis Papachristodoulou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulouStephen Duncan: https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-stephen-duncan/Francesca Boem: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/f.boemEDI survey: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/ahijkyMentorship scheme sign-up form: https://ukcontrol.org/ace-network-mentor-schemeACE position paper: https://ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ACE-Position-Paper.pdfNetwork + survey: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=yRJQnBa2wkSpF2aBT74-hyrBNzE3vqFAgmzn8RVGrRVUM1pNMEZFREExUTBJQ1dRUkJTNFRGNEJPVi4u&route=shorturl Claude shutdown: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/claude-fable-5-disabled-us-government/Brian Douglas podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHal Chao Gu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chao-gu-609073220/Petri nets: http://www.petri-net.de/AEGEAN: https://en.about.aegeanair.com/company/fleet/Liam Hallinan: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LmZyKIIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=aoSalma Iraky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmassabry/TERRA github: https://github.com/sssabry/teraAnton Selivanov: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anton-SelivanovAllan Nascimento (Multi-horizon MPC author): https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/author/867072138905292 Miroslav Krstic: https://flyingv.ucsd.edu/Neural operators: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08481Mohammad Adballah: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/schools/meme/staff/phd/mohammad-abdallah/ Luke Rickard: https://www.lukerickard.co.uk/Will Rohde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wfmrohde/Dan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobsonAnthony Rossiter: https://ieeecss.org/contact/anthony-rossiterControl101 toolbox: https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/130439-control-101-toolbox
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    51 min
  • Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 2 (AI Architectures and the Dynamics of Intelligence)

    Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 2 (AI Architectures and the Dynamics of Intelligence)
    Jun 7 2026
    In the second part of my interview with the incredibly talented Carmen Amo Alonso we discuss her fascinating work at the intersection of AI and control, examining topics such as:Using tools from control theory to analyse and design AI systemsControlling large language models to guarantee a particular sentiment for their outputUsing vision-language-action models to control robots using languageand a whole lot more! You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ph1yaQuV_ybRM8h9rU5Uvmz9eB5Ar4HVhcBnc7b7zJ8/edit?usp=sharingFollow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/ ReferencesThe architecture of language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApC0AWWTajUDiffusion models: https://the-principles-of-diffusion-models.github.io/Skip connection paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10609 Review of state-space models in AI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16899 3 Blue 1 Brown video on transformers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZofJX0v4MDynamical systems framework paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15731 Designing sequence models: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09389v1Controlling LLM output: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15454v3Controllability of LLMs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05637v1 Vision-language-action model paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05487v1NARRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.10762DEMONSTRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12855v1Domitilla Del Vecchio: https://meche.mit.edu/people/faculty/ddv@MIT.EDUBiomolecular feedback systems book: https://www.fbswiki.org/wiki/index.php/Biomolecular_Feedback_SystemsMathias Foo episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1G3vhRoeenTWRrEwauT0neinControl episodes: Mario di Bernardo: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/19167890-ep44-mario-di-bernardo-from-circuits-to-cells-and-swarms-control-meets-complexityMustafa Khammash: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12648716-ep11-mustafa-khammash-cybergeneticsJohn Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyleInControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12841020-ep12-john-doyle-part-i-a-pioneer-s-guide-to-robust-control-the-past-present-and-futureJerome Sieber: https://jerome.sieber.io/
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    52 min
  • Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 1 (Distributed and Localized Model Predictive Control)

    Carmen Amo Alonso: Part 1 (Distributed and Localized Model Predictive Control)
    Jun 2 2026

    In this episode I talk to the very wonderful Carmen Amo Alonso about her (award-winning) PhD research on distributed and localised MPC. We also cover super interesting and useful concepts such as system-level synthesis and ADMM, as well as her internship working at Tesla!


    You can access the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SErvHtKoE18QzelHDUh9im6AeG3zKPWZLRoNGx5BUyg/edit?usp=sharing


    Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

    Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

    References

    Carmen: https://camoalon.github.io/

    JPL: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

    John Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyle

    Feedback in biological control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9867859

    https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9867794

    Thesis: https://thesis.caltech.edu/15262/3/Carmen_Amo_Alonso_Caltech_PhD_Thesis.pdf

    Distributed localised MPC paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9939038

    Professor Melanie Zeilinger: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/melanie-zeilinger-0

    SLS for robust nonlinear optimal control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2301.04943

    Professor Nikolai Matni: https://nikolaimatni.github.io/

    System-level synthesis tutorial: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.01634

    YouTube videos on DLMPC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF2Wbriy2Zg

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhtuGZp8QM0&t=302s

    ADMM survey paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2208.03700

    Professor James Anderson: https://www.columbia.edu/~ja3451/

    Data-driven DLMCP: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9772975

    Willems fundamental lemma: https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/262195/1/PersistencyExcitation.pdf

    Paolo Rapisarda episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/076dEw28abILPAbT5qA6aw

    Implementing DLMP on GPUs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=9831839

    Clubes de Ciencia: Mexico: https://clubesdeciencia.mx/

    Peru: https://clubesdecienciaperu.org/

    Terry Sejnowski: https://biology.ucsd.edu/research/faculty/tsejnowski
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    30 min
  • Journal Clubs (Creating reading groups that people want to be part of)

    Journal Clubs (Creating reading groups that people want to be part of)
    May 1 2026

    In this episode I talk to three lovely researchers all about journal clubs (AKA reading groups) – what they are, why you might want to be part of one, and how to start your own! I also give some insights from my own experiences running a (control-related) journal club, as well as a summary of three of my favourite papers we’ve read.

    You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19i4egf_2KEWqkp94ZW3QjRTH8PeAZz6yEix8zoSfx4k/edit?usp=sharing

    Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

    Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

    References

    Al Edwards: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/62mm7y/doctor-al-edwards

    Antonia Marcu: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xk5lz/miss-antonia-marcu

    Convexification for soft landing optimal control paper: http://www.larsblackmore.com/iee_tcst13.pdf

    Improved soft robotic parameterisation paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8961972

    KKL observer synthesis paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.11655

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    34 min
  • Brian Douglas (Control Engineering in Industry)

    Brian Douglas (Control Engineering in Industry)
    Apr 1 2026

    In this episode I got the opportunity to sit down with the fantastic Brian Douglas and talk about what it's like to be a control engineer in industry, common misconceptions he had, and advice for current students. We also discussed his YouTube channel, as well as a few more technical aspects of projects he's been involved with over the years!


    You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gAyIAgd3RzVSSDmJ-As0gzJVekJG3IqU2L-1zJhuKYs/edit?usp=sharing

    Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/

    Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/

    References

    Brian Douglas: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brian-douglas-505b7175/

    Engineering Media (Brian’s company): https://engineeringmedia.com/

    Original YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq0imsn84ShAe9PBOFnoIrg

    MATLAB YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MATLAB

    Co-design podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3upRUgZBy79tqihMy9BDsJ


    Veritasium: https://www.youtube.com/@veritasium

    Smarter every day: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6107grRI4m0o2-emgoDnAA

    Mark Rober: https://www.youtube.com/@MarkRober

    Formal verification video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kINfn-ZYiLY

    InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/15223020-ep24-brian-douglas-boeing-control-videos-resourcium-map-of-control-theory-cartoons-mathworks
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    59 min