Coffee and Control

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

In this episode I got to speak with the fantastic Gioele Zardini about his work on the co-design framework, a fascinating framework used to optimise large interconnected systems. We cover the theoretical background of this, intuition behind it, and a ton of different applications where it’s useful, as well as discussing exciting open questions in the field!
 
Find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XPZr9jP4Lphskkw-SiM8h-x1kp7LROqZ243S6zA7EsY/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
Gioele Zardini: https://zardini.mit.edu/
PhD thesis: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/entities/publication/d7c08dd5-bf96-4c1f-a744-5e751f0f44a5
PhDs in control interview: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10555200
Emilio Frazzoli: https://idsc.ethz.ch/research-frazzoli/people/person-detail.frazzoli.html
Andrea Cenci: https://nccr-automation.ch/about/people/andrea-censi
Marco Pavone: https://profiles.stanford.edu/marco-pavone
NuTonomy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NuTonomy(current site: https://motional.com/)
Brad Nelson: https://msrl.ethz.ch/the-lab/team/Brad_Nelson.html
David Sacramuza: https://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/people_scaramuzza.html
Yujun Huang: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/yujun-huang/
Uncertainty in co-design paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.02766
 
Background refs on category theory:
David Spivak: https://dspivak.net/
Brendan Fong: http://brendanfong.com/
Gioele's work in progress book: https://storage.zuper.ai/sync/ACT4E/ACT4E/alphubel-prod/build/last/build-public/ACT4E-public.pdf
YouTube talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmAz6fEPa2o
Gioele's course: https://zardini.mit.edu/act4ed/
MIT applied category theory course: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-s097-applied-category-theory-january-iap-2019/
Seven sketches in compositionality: http://brendanfong.com/fong_spivak_an_invitation.pdf
 
LQG control co-design paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9654960
LQG background: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4_hFazBGxU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_RDCFOlJx4
Aaron Ames: http://ames.caltech.edu/
Nikolai Matni: https://nikolaimatni.github.io/
John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle
CDC episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3ZUcm3gVHKILDEyDjQtXvx
 
Braess’s paradox: https://resources.mpi-inf.mpg.de/departments/d1/teaching/ws12/ct/Braess-paradox.pdf
 
Co-design of mobility-on-demand systems: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2003.04739
 
Formula One co-design papers: https://www.research-collection.ethz.ch/entities/publication/bd65f78e-f19a-4469-a379-d4b219893a33https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/JQmudB
Co-design of soft robotics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.03761  
Cosimo Della Santina inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/LPNORz
 
Games with partially-ordered objectives: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.07099
Mingjia He: https://mingjia-he.github.io/
Paper on hierarchical games: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12059
Game theory episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2xrwua7U2HfSW3sxY6BnRU
Jeff Shamma inControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18482182-ep40-jeff-shamma-gain-scheduling-nonlinear-control-learning-dissipativity-in-games-jiu-jitsu
Vincent Abbott: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/vincent-abbott/
Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli: https://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Faculty/Homepages/sangiovanni-vicentelli.html
InControl episodes:  https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/14692449-ep21-alberto-sangiovanni-vincentelli-part-i-classics-eda-logic-synthesis-spice-intel-x386-cadence-synopsis-platform-based-design
https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/14882529-ep22-alberto-sangiovanni-vincentelli-part-ii-cyberphysical-and-hybrid-systems-contracts-chiplets-models-of-computation-time-innovative-ecosystems-biobricks-neuromorphics
John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle

In this episode I have a lovely conversation with Dr Barbara Franci about her research into game theory, exploring both theoretical concepts (such as variational inequalities, forwards-backwards algorithms, and stochastic Nash equilibrium-seeking problems) and practical applications, including resource allocation, energy management, and generative adversarial networks!
 
You can find the transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h9AbCPzzlt7ggNOGx3bK3pwSaCUo__LtYzvdJ-5wqYw/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
Barbara Franci: https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/b-franci
PhD thesis: https://tesidottorato.depositolegale.it/bitstream/20.500.14242/198173/1/FRANCI%20Tesi2.pdf
More background on evolutionary games: https://users.ssc.wisc.edu/~whs/teaching/805/handbook.pdf
Jeff Shamma inConctrol episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18482182-ep40-jeff-shamma-gain-scheduling-nonlinear-control-learning-dissipativity-in-games-jiu-jitsu 

Wisdom of a crowd paper: https://epubs.siam.org/doi/abs/10.1137/18M1232267
Francesco Bullo: https://fbullo.github.io/
Original Galton paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/075450a0
 
Video on the Lagrangian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR4ff0dTLTw
Useful lecture notes on these concepts: https://www.mit.edu/~gfarina/notes/
 
Distributed forwards-backwards paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9309063
Extragradient paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11184508
Relaxed inertial forwards-backwards paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9682905
 
Professor Lacra Pavel: https://www.ece.utoronto.ca/people/pavel-l/
Deterministic decoupling paper: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330888828_An_operator_splitting_approach_for_distributed_generalized_Nash_equilibria_computation
Pseudo-monotone functions: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225986571_Pseudomonotone_Operators_A_Survey_of_the_Theory_and_Its_Applications
Inertial gradient descent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iudXf5n_3ro&t=60s
 
GANs paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9523601
Original Goodfellow paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/1406.2661

Partial information paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109821006300
Incorporating a bias: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10886508
Nash games with misleading information: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11008595

Evolutionary dynamics in distributed control: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7823106

In this bonus episode I explore the work of ten fascinating researchers that I met at the Meet the Faculty Candidates poster session at CDC last month. We cover a wide array of different areas, including data-driven methods, fault-tolerant control, biological systems, PDEs, distributed estimation and a whole lot more!
 
Correction: At ~5:20 I mention that Anju was able to characterize the strategies of the two communicating entities at the Nash equilibrium - In actual fact this is a Stackelberg equilibrium (Stackelberg games involve players acting sequentially, taking either a leader or follower role)

You can view the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/15Tf4ORHPI5Thbs-nA9DQTSu87TKbYni9JJN2UXqn5kU/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/
 
Links and references
Amy Strong: https://bridgeman.pratt.duke.edu/people/amy-strong
Paper on data-driven invariance: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19231
 
Anju Anand: https://sites.google.com/binghamton.edu/anjuanand
Strategic quantisation: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10960399
Incorporating privacy into the objective: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2506.06321
 
Brian Block: https://mae.osu.edu/people/block.168
Control of PDE traffic flow: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.04823

Declan Jagt: https://search.asu.edu/profile/3729730
Stability analysis of coupled multivariate PDEs: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.14840
Scalar quadratic PDEs: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10384073
PIETOOLS software: https://control.asu.edu/pietools/pietools
Hamza El-Kebir: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hamza-el-kebir/
Control authority degradation paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10354437
Sensor and actuator degradation: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=10521243
Electrosurgery paper: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article/21/210/20230420/90578/Heat-conduction-in-live-tissue-during
Electrostatic signed distance functions: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.12554
 
Kirill Sechkar: https://engbio.ox.ac.uk/people/kirill-sechkar
Control of genetic circuits paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.04.01.646303v2.full.pdf
 

Nick Marios Kokolakis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nick-marios-t-kokolakis-44717b164/
Pre-defined time RL paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0005109825003152
 Parth Paritosh: https://pptx.github.io/pparitosh/Estimating a subset of variables: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2312.01227
Privacy preserving paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/11073227
Radoslaw Patelski: https://www.linkedin.com/in/radoslaw-patelski/?originalSubdomain=pl
Observers for hovercraft: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9874346
ADRC with parameter identification: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10345678
ADRC with adaptive input gain: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0019057825001089
 
Carmen Amo Alonso: https://camoalon.github.io/
Research overview: https://camoalon.github.io/research/
Comparing mixer blocks: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2405.15731
Intro to state space models in deep learning: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.16899
Combining generative AI with control in robotics: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2403.10762

In this episode I bring my microphones with me to the conference of decision and control (CDC) where I talk to a load of interesting researchers about their recent work. Featuring discussion of a wide range of different topics, including reinforcement learning, control architecture, game theory, AI-human interaction, event-triggered control and a whole lot more!
 
You can view the episode transcript at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1h6PdTd9xLTcJOGPx6TIkXOKPz_NGoS9_sA8CUvoZlx8/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/
 
CDC web-page: https://cdc2025.ieeecss.org/
Female influencers in control: https://www.control.lth.se/external-engagement/female-influencers-in-automatic-control/
Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe7VtNHI6bG8UBEoSGiAuVXNsmXSHlw8xG0LuMon2DVd0Pv0A/viewform
inControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/18361436-ep39-female-influencers-in-control
 
Alessandro Abate: https://www.cs.ox.ac.uk/people/alessandro.abate/
Maegan Tucker: https://maegantucker.com/
Joe Moeller: https://joe-moeller.com/
Category theory blog: https://joe-moeller.com/hi/
Rodolphe Sepulchre: https://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/rs771
inControl episode: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/9HLW37
Spiking control of a snake: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.02968
Neuromorphic architecture: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.11924
 
Raj Velichete: https://ece.illinois.edu/about/directory/grad-students/rkv4
Vijeth Hebber: https://www.vijethhebbar.com/
John Doyle: https://www.eas.caltech.edu/people/doyle
InControl episodes: https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/yx0IF5https://CoffeeControlLinks.short.gy/qtk0Le
Dimos Dimarogonas: https://people.kth.se/~dimos/
Plenary on formal verification for multi-agent systems: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C3GSgVmxdo&t=1327s
Attacks on controlling multi-agent systems: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11036540
ESC inspired by insect flapping: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11006034
My CDC paper: https://pure.soton.ac.uk/admin/files/315205732/CDC2025_2_.pdf
Jorge Poveda: https://poveda.ucsd.edu/
Victoria Grushkovskaya: https://grushkovska.science/
Higher-order Lie bracket extremum-seeking: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2310.07092 https://arxiv.org/pdf/2504.01136
 
Azu Ozdaglar: https://asu.mit.edu/
Full video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DR37zdEKPw
Matt Turner: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5y5nkg/professor-matthew-turner
Matt Turner episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5KLLOvbCjOkL0v8iXo84vt
Kemin Zhou: https://www.ece.lsu.edu/kemin/
Multiobjective complementary control: https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/document/10767397
 
Yujun Huang: https://zardini.mit.edu/people/yujun-huang/
Tyler Hanks: https://gataslab.org/members/tylerhanks
NextCom: https://sites.google.com/view/css-nextcom
NextCom podcast episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7exZHRwVazI8AaHtiSMmE8
Csaba Szepesvari: https://sites.ualberta.ca/~szepesva/
Friday plenary talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2IrHyuSjU
Fengyu Yue: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fengyu-yue-8849a6314/?originalSubdomain=il
Pio Ong: https://pioong.github.io/
Jacqueline Scherpen: https://www.rug.nl/staff/j.m.a.scherpen/?lang=en
Bode lecture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2IrHyuSjU  (Skip to 4:52:46)
Alberto Padoan episode on model order reduction: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1kwlnlQqtID1naRcyLL12O
Meggie Maschner: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meggie-marschner-445634236/?originalSubdomain=de
Brooks Butler: https://sites.google.com/view/brooks-butler
Mauro Salazar: https://www.tue.nl/en/research/researchers/mauro-salazar
Design of smart cities: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W2IrHyuSjU  (Skip to 8:32:49)