Learning-Driven Optimization and Control of Autonomous and Distributed Systems: Algorithms and Robotic Toolboxes

SPEAKER: Giuseppe Notarstefano,

Professor in the Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering

Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna

TITLE: Learning-Driven Optimization and Control of Autonomous and Distributed Systems: Algorithms and Robotic Toolboxes

ABSTRACT:  In this talk I will present scenarios for autonomous and cooperative decision systems that can be addressed by means of optimization-based control and learning approaches. At a methodological level I will show how system theory provides elegant and insightful tools to analyze complex systems including the interconnection of algorithmic and physical dynamics. In the first part of the talk, I will introduce novel learning-driven numerical optimal control methods that exploit online data from real systems. For selected classes of problems, I will show that convergence guarantees for on-policy and online schemes can be provided by combining tools from system theory and optimization. In the second part of the talk, I will move to a distributed optimization framework in which the solution of an optimization problem is computed cooperatively by agents without the presence of a central coordinator. For this framework I will show novel distributed approaches combining learning and optimization tools and as well as algorithms combining microscopic schemes with macroscopic models. In this setting, I will show how the use of distributed feedback optimization and learning algorithms can lead to complex emerging behaviors for cooperative multi-robot systems. Finally, I will introduce novel toolboxes, based on ROS (Robotic Operating System) 2, for distributed robotics and show virtual, real and mixed-real experiments on heterogeneous multi-robot systems implementing the proposed strategies.

BIO: Giuseppe Notarstefano is a Professor in the Department of Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering G. Marconi at Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, where he has been Director of Degree of Automation Engineering from 2019 to 2025. He was Associate Professor (June ‘16 – June ‘18) and previously Assistant Professor, Ricercatore, (from Feb ‘07) at the Università del Salento, Lecce, Italy. He received the Laurea degree “summa cum laude” in Electronics Engineering from the Università di Pisa in 2003 and the Ph.D. degree in Automation and Operation Research from the Università di Padova in 2007. He has been visiting scholar at the University of Stuttgart, University of California Santa Barbara and University of Colorado Boulder. His research interests include distributed optimization, cooperative control in complex networks, applied nonlinear optimal control, and trajectory optimization and maneuvering of aerial and car vehicles. He has served as an Associate Editor for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and IEEE Control Systems Letters. He has been part of the Conference Editorial Board of IEEE Control Systems Society and EUCA. He was recipient of the IEEE TCNS outstanding paper award 2021 and his students have received awards for best student papers and theses including the EECI European PhD award on Systems and Control. He was a recipient of an ERC Starting Grant 2014.

DATE/TIME: Thursday 19 February 2026, at 2.30pm CET.

LOCATION:  Aula Pontano - Accademia Pontaniana, Via Mezzocannone n. 8

The colloquium will be broadcast also online, on Zoom.

Meeting ID: 841 4421 2706    |    Passcode: 656302