Giancarlo Ferrari Trecate
EPFL STI IGM SCI-STI-GFT
ME C2 398 (Bâtiment ME)
Station 9
1015 Lausanne
+41 21 693 38 45
+41 21 693 42 12
Office: ME C2 398
EPFL › STI › IGM › SCI-STI-GFT
Website: https://www.epfl.ch/labs/decode/
+41 21 693 42 12
EPFL › STI › STI-SGM › SGM-ENS
Expertise
Mission
Recent publications
Distributionally robust infinite-horizon control: from a pool of samples to the design of dependable controllers
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
2025
DOI : 10.1109/tac.2025.3560542
On the Guarantees of Minimizing Regret in Receding Horizon
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
2025
DOI : 10.1109/TAC.2024.3464013
Dependable learning and control through Neural ODEs
Lausanne, EPFL, 2025.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-11081.
Fleet Operations in Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand Systems: Vehicle Repositioning and Coordinated Route Planning
Lausanne, EPFL, 2025.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-10914.
Erratum to “Learning to Boost the Performance of Stable Nonlinear Systems”
IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems
2025
DOI : 10.1109/ojcsys.2025.3529361
Parametrizations of all stable closed-loop responses: From theory to neural network control design
Annual Reviews in Control
2025
DOI : 10.1016/j.arcontrol.2025.101012
Optimal Control under Uncertainty: From Regret Minimization to Distributional Robustness
Lausanne, EPFL, 2025.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-11090.
A PAC-Bayesian Framework for Optimal Control with Stability Guarantees
2024. 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control , Milan, Italy , 2024-12-16 - 2024-12-19. p. 8237 - 8244.DOI : 10.1109/cdc56724.2024.10886285.
Neural Distributed Controllers with Port-Hamiltonian Structures
2024. 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control , Milan, Italy , 2024-12-16 - 2024-12-19. p. 8633 - 8638.DOI : 10.1109/CDC56724.2024.10886616.
Optimal distributed control with stability guarantees by training a network of neural closed-loop maps
2024. 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control , Milan, Italy , 2024-12-16 - 2024-12-19. p. 3776 - 3781.DOI : 10.1109/CDC56724.2024.10886574.
Neural Exponential Stabilization of Control-affine Nonlinear Systems
2024. 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control , Milan, Italy , 2024-12-16 - 2024-12-19. p. 8602 - 8607.DOI : 10.1109/CDC56724.2024.10886677.
Regret optimal control for uncertain stochastic systems
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF CONTROL
2024
DOI : 10.1016/j.ejcon.2024.101051
Power grid parameter estimation without phase measurements: Theory and empirical validation
Electric Power Systems Research
2024
DOI : 10.1016/j.epsr.2024.110709
Hierarchical Control for Vehicle Repositioning in Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand Systems
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON CONTROL SYSTEMS TECHNOLOGY
2024
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2024.3448300
Closing the Gap to Quadratic Invariance: A Regret Minimization Approach to Optimal Distributed Control
2024. 2024 European Control Conference (ECC) , Stockholm, Sweden , 2024-06-25 - 2024-06-28. p. 756 - 761.DOI : 10.23919/ecc64448.2024.10591017.
A Coverage Control-Based Idle Vehicle Rebalancing Approach for Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand Systems
Ieee Transactions On Control Systems Technology
2024
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2024.3375765
Unconstrained Learning of Networked Nonlinear Systems via Free Parametrization of Stable Interconnected Operators
2024. European Control Conference , Stockholm, Sweden , 2024-06-25 - 2024-06-28. p. 651 - 656.DOI : 10.23919/ECC64448.2024.10591242.
Stable Linear Subspace Identification: A Machine Learning Approach
2024. European Control Conference , Stockholm, Sweden , 2024-06-25 - 2024-06-28. p. 3539 - 3544.DOI : 10.23919/ECC64448.2024.10590843.
Navigating the Loop: From Control Systems to Neural Networks and Back
Lausanne, EPFL, 2024.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-10264.
Estimation and control under uncertainty with application to power systems
Lausanne, EPFL, 2024.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-11079.
Learning to Boost the Performance of Stable Nonlinear Systems
IEEE Open Journal of Control Systems
2024
DOI : 10.1109/OJCSYS.2024.3441768
SIMBa: System Identification Methods Leveraging Backpropagation
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
2024
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2024.3477301
Distributionally Robust Infinite-horizon Control: from a pool of samples to the design of dependable controllers
2023
Data-enabled Predictive Control for Empty Vehicle Rebalancing
2023. 21st European Control Conference (ECC 23) , Bucharest, Romania , 13-16 June, 2023.DOI : 10.23919/ECC57647.2023.10178140.
Near-Optimal Design of Safe Output-Feedback Controllers From Noisy Data
Ieee Transactions On Automatic Control
2023
DOI : 10.1109/TAC.2022.3180692
Bayesian Error-in-Variables Models for the Identification of Distribution Grids
Ieee Transactions On Smart Grid
2023
DOI : 10.1109/TSG.2022.3211546
Hamiltonian Deep Neural Networks Guaranteeing Non-Vanishing Gradients by Design
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
2023
DOI : 10.1109/TAC.2023.3239430
On the Optimality and Convergence Properties of the Iterative Learning Model Predictive Controller
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
2023
DOI : 10.1109/TAC.2022.3148227
Regularization for distributionally robust state estimation and prediction
2023
DOI : 10.48550/arxiv.2304.09921
Safe Zeroth-Order Optimization Using Linear Programs
2023. 62nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , Singapore, SINGAPORE , DEC 13-15, 2023. p. 556 - 561.Safe Zeroth-Order Convex Optimization Using Quadratic Local Approximations
2023. 21st European Control Conference - ECC2023 , Bucharest, Romania , June 13-16, 2023.DOI : 10.23919/ECC57647.2023.10178374.
Maximum likelihood estimation of distribution grid topology and parameters from Smart Meter data
2023. IEEE PES Grid Edge Technologies Conference and Exposition (Grid Edge) , San Diego, CA , Apr 10-13, 2023.DOI : 10.1109/GridEdge54130.2023.10102720.
Physically Consistent Neural ODEs for Learning Multi-Physics Systems
2023. 22nd IFAC World Congress , Yokohama, Japan , July 9-14, 2023. p. 5855 - 5860.DOI : 10.1016/j.ifacol.2023.10.079.
Minimal regret state estimation of time-varying systems
2023. 22nd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) , Yokohama, JAPAN , JUL 09-14, 2023. p. 2595 - 2600.DOI : 10.1016/j.ifacol.2023.10.1345.
Data-Driven Control and Optimization under Noisy and Uncertain Conditions
Lausanne, EPFL, 2023.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-10304.
Universal Approximation Property of Hamiltonian Deep Neural Networks
Ieee Control Systems Letters
2023
DOI : 10.1109/LCSYS.2023.3288350
Neural Energy Casimir Control for Port-Hamiltonian Systems
2022. 2022 IEEE 61st Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , Cancun, Mexico , December 6-9, 2022.DOI : 10.1109/CDC51059.2022.9992784.
A Unified Passivity-Based Framework for Control of Modular Islanded AC Microgrids
Ieee Transactions On Control Systems Technology
2022
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2021.3136489
Optimal Adaptive Droop Design via a Modified Relaxation of the OPF
Ieee Transactions On Control Systems Technology
2022
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2022.3183164
Robust Classification Using Contractive Hamiltonian Neural ODEs
Ieee Control Systems Letters
2022
DOI : 10.1109/LCSYS.2022.3186959
Empty Vehicle Repositioning for Autonomous Mobility-on-Demand systems via Coverage Control
2022. the 10th symposium of the European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART) , Leuven, Belgium , June 1-3 , 2022.Distributed neural network control with dependability guarantees: a compositional port-Hamiltonian approach
2022. 4th Annual Conference on Learning for Dynamics and Control , Stanford, California, USA , June 23-24, 2022. p. 571 - 583.Consensus-Based Current Sharing and Voltage Balancing in DC Microgrids with Exponential Loads
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
2022
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2021.3120321
Data-driven and Safe Networked Control with Applications to Microgrids
Lausanne, EPFL, 2022.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-9185.
Finite-sample-based Spectral Radius Estimation and Stabilizability Test for Networked Control Systems
2022. European Control Conference (ECC) , London, ENGLAND , Jul 12-15, 2022. p. 2087 - 2092.DOI : 10.23919/ECC55457.2022.9838044.
Data-Driven Unknown-Input Observers and State Estimation
IEEE Control Systems Letters
2022
DOI : 10.1109/LCSYS.2021.3102821
Identification of AC Distribution Networks With Recursive Least Squares and Optimal Design of Experiment
Ieee Transactions On Control Systems Technology
2022
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2021.3116856
Idle-vehicle Rebalancing Coverage Control for Ride-sourcing systems
2022. European Control Conference (ECC) , London, ENGLAND , Jul 12-15, 2022. p. 1970 - 1975.DOI : 10.23919/ECC55457.2022.9838069.
Neural System Level Synthesis: Learning over All Stabilizing Policies for Nonlinear Systems
2022. 61st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , Cancún, Mexico , December 6-9, 2022.DOI : 10.1109/CDC51059.2022.9992492.
Optimal control configuration in distribution network via an exact OPF relaxation method
2022. IEEE 61st Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , Cancun, MEXICO , Dec 06-09, 2022. p. 5698 - 5704.DOI : 10.1109/CDC51059.2022.9993413.
Learning Robustly Safe Output Feedback Controllers from Noisy Data with Performance Guarantees
2021
Supervised model predictive control of large-scale electricity networks via clustering methods
Optimal Control Applications & Methods
2021
DOI : 10.1002/oca.2725
On Consensusability of Linear Interconnected Multi-Agent Systems and Simultaneous Stabilization
IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems
2021
DOI : 10.1109/TCNS.2021.3106446
Hierarchical Control of Islanded Microgrids with Flexible Structures
Lausanne, EPFL, 2021.DOI : 10.5075/epfl-thesis-8775.
Bayesian Methods for the Identification of Distribution Networks
2021. 2021 IEEE 60th Annual Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , Austin, Texas, USA , December 13-17, 2021. p. 3646 - 3651.DOI : 10.1109/CDC45484.2021.9683503.
A unified framework for Hamiltonian deep neural networks
2021. Learning for Dynamics and Control , Online , June 7-8, 2021. p. 275 - 286.Actuator Placement for Structural Controllability beyond Strong Connectivity and towards Robustness
2021. 60th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , ELECTR NETWORK , Dec 13-17, 2021. p. 5294 - 5299.DOI : 10.1109/CDC45484.2021.9683002.
A Behavioral Input-Output Parametrization of Control Policies with Suboptimality Guarantees
2021. 60th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , ELECTR NETWORK , Dec 13-17, 2021. p. 2539 - 2544.DOI : 10.1109/CDC45484.2021.9683647.
On Existence of Equilibria, Voltage Balancing, and Current Sharing in Consensus-Based DC Microgrids
2020. European Control Conference (ECC 20) , Saint Petersburg, Russia , May 12‑15, 2020. p. 1216 - 1223.DOI : 10.23919/ECC51009.2020.9143766.
Hierarchical Control in Islanded DC Microgrids With Flexible Structures
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
2020
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2020.3038495
A Distributed Cyber-Attack Detection Scheme With Application to DC Microgrids
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
2020
DOI : 10.1109/TAC.2020.2982577
Consensusability of linear interconnected multi-agent systems
2020. 21st IFAC World Congress on Automatic Control - Meeting Societal Challenges , ELECTR NETWORK , Jul 11-17, 2020. p. 2915 - 2920.DOI : 10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.965.
A Passivity-Based Approach to Voltage Stabilization in DC Microgrids with ZIP loads
Automatica
2020
DOI : 10.1016/j.automatica.2019.108770
Suboptimal Distributed LQR Design for Physically Coupled Systems
2020. 21st IFAC World Congress on Automatic Control - Meeting Societal Challenges , ELECTR NETWORK , Jul 11-17, 2020. p. 11032 - 11037.DOI : 10.1016/j.ifacol.2020.12.227.
A scalable, line-independent control design algorithm for voltage and frequency stabilization in AC islanded microgrids
Automatica
2020
DOI : 10.1016/j.automatica.2019.108577
Approximate Kron Reduction Methods for Electrical Networks With Applications to Plug-and-Play Control of AC Islanded Microgrids
IEEE Transactions On Control Systems Technology
2019
DOI : 10.1109/TCST.2018.2863645
Distributed Fault Detection for Interconnected Large-Scale Systems: A Scalable Plug & Play Approach
Ieee Transactions On Control Of Network Systems
2019
DOI : 10.1109/TCNS.2018.2878500
Stability Analysis of Primary Plug-and-Play and Secondary Leader-Based Controllers for DC Microgrid Clusters
IEEE Transactions on Power Systems
2019
DOI : 10.1109/TPWRS.2018.2884876
Distributed attack detection scheme for islanded DC microgrids
Future Electric Power Systems and the Energy Transition, Champéry, Switzerland, February 3-8, 2019.Passivity-based Voltage and Frequency Stabilization in AC microgrids
2019. 18th European Control Conference (ECC) , Naples, Italy , June 25-28, 2019. p. 1890 - 1895.DOI : 10.23919/ECC.2019.8796119.
Plug-and-Play Fault Detection and Isolation for Large-Scale Nonlinear Systems With Stochastic Uncertainties
IEEE Transactions On Automatic Control
2019
DOI : 10.1109/TAC.2018.2811469
A Supervisory Control Structure for Voltage-Controlled Islanded DC Microgrids
2019. 58th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control , Nice, France , December 11-13, 2019. p. 6566 - 6571.DOI : 10.1109/CDC40024.2019.9029612.
Voltage Stabilization in MVDC Microgrids Using Passivity-Based Nonlinear Control
2018. 57th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) , Miami Beach, FL , Dec 17-19, 2018. p. 7022 - 7027.DOI : 10.1109/CDC.2018.8618882.
Distributed watermarking for secure control of microgrids under replay attacks
2018. 7th IFAC Workshop on Distributed Estimation and Control in Networked Systems (NECSYS) , Groningen, The Netherlands , August 27-28, 2018. p. 182 - 187.DOI : 10.1016/j.ifacol.2018.12.032.
Distributed Cyber-Attack Detection in the Secondary Control of DC Microgrids
2018. European Control Conference (ECC) , Limassol, CYPRUS , Jun 12-15, 2018. p. 351 - 356.DOI : 10.23919/ECC.2018.8550549.
A Passivity-Based Approach to Voltage Stabilization in DC Microgrids
2018. Annual American Control Conference (ACC 2018) , Milwaukee, WI, USA , June 27-29, 2018. p. 5374 - 5379.DOI : 10.23919/ACC.2018.8431522.
Distributed Cyber-Attack Detection in the Secondary Control of DC Microgrids
2018. European Control Conference 2018 , Limassol, Cyprus . p. 344 - 349.DOI : 10.23919/ECC.2018.8550549.
Distributed watermarking for secure control of microgrids under replay attacks
2018
Plug-and-play design of current controllers for grid-feeding converters in DC microgrids
2017. 11th Asian Control Conference (ASCC 2017) , Gold Coast, QLD, Australia , December 17-20, 2017. p. 2182 - 2187.DOI : 10.1109/ASCC.2017.8287513.
A distributed attack detection method for multi-agent systems governed by consensus-based control
2017. 56th Annual Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2017) , Melbourne, Australia , December 12-15, 2017. p. 5961 - 5966.DOI : 10.1109/CDC.2017.8264562.
Decentralized and distributed robust control invariance for constrained linear systems
2017. 56th Annual Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2017) , Melbourne, Australia , December 12-15, 2017. p. 5978 - 5984.DOI : 10.1109/CDC.2017.8264564.
Review on Control of DC Microgrids
IEEE Journal of Emerging and Selected Topics in Power Electronics
2017
DOI : 10.1109/JESTPE.2017.2690219
Tube-based distributed control of linear constrained systems
Automatica
2012
DOI : 10.1016/j.automatica.2012.08.024
PhD Students
https://people.epfl.ch/297216?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/317337?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/352018?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/359571?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/375901?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/387900?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/396785?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/404101?lang=en, https://people.epfl.ch/406855?lang=en
Past EPFL PhD Students
Pulkit Nahata, Mustafa Sahin Turan, Baiwei Guo, Jean-Sébastien Brouillon, Clara Galimberti, http://dx.doi.org/10.5075/epfl-thesis-11081, http://dx.doi.org/10.5075/epfl-thesis-11090
http://dx.doi.org/10.5075/epfl-thesis-10914
Courses
Multivariable control
This course covers methods for the analysis and control of systems with multiple inputs and outputs, which are ubiquitous in modern technology and industry. Special emphasis will be placed on discrete-time systems due to their relevance to digital and embedded control architectures.
Networked control systems
This course offers an introduction to control systems using communication networks for interfacing sensors, actuators, controllers, and processes. Challenges due to network non-idealities and opportunities offered by communication will be analyzed.