Podcast · Tech & Science

inControl

by Alberto Padoan · English · Tech & Science

The first podcast on control theory. inControl shop: https://incontrolpodcast.myshopify.com/

New episodes: Monthly
Typical length: 1 hr 32 min
Latest: 13 Sep 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

13 Sep 2026 · 1 hr 46 min

ep48 - Romeo Ortega: From sliding modes to adaptive, passivity-based and energy-shaping control

Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:31 - Mexico City to Leningrad: a communist girlfriend, and a year of Russian 05:40 - Sliding modes at the source 10:38 - France: Ioan Landau, Laurent Praly, and dynamic normalization 16:25 - Continuity, robustness, and the Rohrs counterexamples 24:18 - On Gerhard Kreisselmeier 28:04 - Illinois and Mexico 35:31 - Mark Spong, Twente, and passivity-based control 46:32 - Energy shaping, damping injection, and total energy shaping 49:50 - IDA-PBC, written on a napkin in a...

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

S4 · E9 · 17 Aug 2026 · 1 hr 43 min
ep47 - Tore Hägglund and José Luis Guzman: the art of PID control
Outline 00:00 - Intro 08:35 - What is PID control? 12:15 - The history: Minorsky, 1922, and steering ships 21:00 - The lambda method, IMC, and analytical tuning 28:45 - Set-point weighting and two degrees of freedom 32:50 - Automatic tuning and the relay feedback problem 40:35 - The Lund school and Karl Johan Åström 50:20 - PID is nearly optimal 57:30 - PID tuning: the elephant in the room 1:01:35 - Open problems and the one-third rule 1:05:45 - Feedforward: the unsung hero 1:15:00 - PID as a...
S4 · E8 · 15 Jul 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
ep46 - The fall of LTCM: Bachelier, Merton, and Black–Scholes ... when stochastic control met Wall Street
Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:25 - Bachelier and the Théorie de la Spéculation 03:05 - Stochastic processes, Brownian motion, and the heat equation 09:45 - Poincaré's verdict, obscurity, and rediscovery 13:50 - Robert C. Merton: from hot rods to MIT 19:25 - Dynamic programming and Itô calculus 24:35 - Merton's portfolio problem as stochastic optimal control 31:10 - Options, dynamic hedging, and the Black–Scholes–Merton equation 39:50 - LTCM: the dream team 46:30 - August 1998: the crash 49:00 - Fa...
S4 · E7 · 15 Jun 2026 · 1 hr 32 min
ep45 - Peter Caines: from stochastic and adaptive control to mean field games, graphons, and beyond!
Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:10 - London in the 1960s 12:40 - From Oxford to Imperial College: David Mayne and the discrete-time Riccati equation 18:05 - The "global tour": Montenegro roads, hitch-hiking to Istanbul, and the San Francisco waterfront 22:30 - Feedback and causality between stochastic processes 31:15 - The system identification years 40:50 - Model complexity, the bias–variance trade-off, and concentration inequalities 52:05 - Adaptive control: living through a golden era 1:0...
S4 · E6 · 15 May 2026 · 1 hr 30 min
ep44 - Mario di Bernardo: From Circuits to Cells and Swarms — Control meets Complexity
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:30 - Origin story: Naples, electrical engineering, and the fascination with chaos 08:00 - What is chaos? 15:00 - DC-DC converters and discontinuity-induced bifurcations 22:00 - Piecewise-smooth dynamical systems 26:55 - Complex networks, synchronization, and pinning control 40:30- Synthetic biology: from gene regulatory networks to multicellular control 58:00 - COVID-19: a network epidemic model for Italy 1:02:00 - Multiscale control, statistical mechanics, and p...
S4 · E5 · 15 Apr 2026 · 1 hr 14 min
ep43 - Steve Brunton: DMD, Koopman, SINDy, Eigensteve Channel, HydroGym, Optimization, and much more
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:15 - Origin story: early path and the road to science 04:20 - On graphical visualization and aphantasia 08:08 - The interest in fluid dynamics 12:00 - Caltech, Jerry Marsden, and the move to the Pacific time zone 19:43 - Dynamic Mode Decomposition (DMD) and the Koopman operator 27:15 - On teaching and the Eigensteve channel 39:22 - SINDy: Sparse Identification of Nonlinear Dynamics 45:45 - Automatic knowledge creation and Expl...
S4 · E4 · 16 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 10 min
ep42 - inControl guide to ... the Nyquist criterion
Outline 00:00 – Intro 04:43 – Life and background 08:45 – Bell Labs 13:42 – Inventing the negative feedback amplifier 18:15 – Nyquist's landmark contributions 20:43 – Regeneration theory 27:10 – Frequency response 32:03 – Cauchy’s argument principle 36:05 – The Nyquist criterion 41:37 – Why is it so hard? 45:27 – Robustness, margins, and practical aspects 56:41 – Beyond the Nyquist criterion 1:04:25 – Pitfalls and common misunderstandings 1:07:00 – Outro Links Brian Douglas's video: http://y2...
S4 · E3 · 16 Feb 2026 · 1 hr 32 min
ep41 - A minimal history of optimal control
Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:55 - Brachistochrone problem 20:52 - Beginning of the calculus of variations 32:00 - Principle of least action 42:37 - Maximum principle 1:02:35 - Dynamic programming 1:11:12 - Linear quadratic control 1:16:37 - Beyond optimal control: games, nonsmooth analysis, MPC, RL 1:28:40 - Outro Links 300 years of optimal control: https://tinyurl.com/2s3t8se4 Brachistochrone: https://tinyurl.com/mwmv38ew Acta Eruditorum, 1696: https://tinyurl.com/55yf5v49 Acta Eruditorum, 1697:...
S4 · E2 · 15 Jan 2026 · 2 hr 11 min
ep40 - Jeff Shamma: gain scheduling, nonlinear control, learning & dissipativity in games, jiu-jitsu
Outline 00:00 - Intro 03:18 - Early days: why control, M. Athans, and IDSS 12:21 - What is gain scheduling? 33:37 - Paradigm shifts & the ‘90s: Minnesota → Texas → LA 42:19 - Robustness & fundamental limitations of nonlinear systems 57:35 - Set-valued control & estimation 01:04:52 - Game theory & multi-agent control 01:28:18 - Learning & dissipativity in games & multi agent AI 01:45:03 - KAUST: building something new 01:53:33 - On human-algorithmic interaction 01:59:...
S4 · E1 · 16 Dec 2025 · 1 hr 6 min
ep39 - Female influencers in control
Outline 00:00 - Intro 05:01 - Female Influencers in Control — The Backstory 08:08 - Sofya Kovalevskaya 15:21 - Irmgard Lotz 26:16 - A new wave of control influencers 34:26 - Some data 43:38 - What can one do? 1:00:10 - Exhibition + survey 1:05:21 - Outro Links Female influencers in control project: https://tinyurl.com/mv879ahf Charlotta Johnsson: https://tinyurl.com/343esbeu Eva Westin: https://tinyurl.com/3p6fd5n8 Margret Bauer: https://tinyurl.com/47d35xzb Sofya Kovalevskaya: https:...
S3 · E12 · 17 Nov 2025 · 1 hr 25 min
ep38 - inControl guide to ... Feedback
Outline 00:00 – Intro 07:22 – Anatomy of a feedback loop 15:12 – A brief historical recap on the history of feedback 23:40 – Inventing the negative feedback amplifier 34:28 – Feedback in biology, economics, society, and ... board games! 52:44 – Negative vs positive feedback 59:15 – Feedback, causality, and the arrow of time 1:06:22 – Classics: fundamental limitations, uncertainty, robustness 1:21:30 – Adaptive control: learning in the loop 1:29:50 – Modern AI feedback loops (RL, social media,...
S3 · E11 · 16 Oct 2025 · 1 hr 25 min
ep37 - A. M. Lyapunov: The General Problem of Stability of Motion
Outline 00:00 - Intro 03:12 - Early life 09:07 - St. Petersburg: Stability of Ellipsoidal Bodies 20:13 - Kharkov: The General Problem of the Stability of Motion 34:37 - Back to St. Petersburg: Probability & Academy 46:22 - Tragic end 49:50 - Posthumous recognition 57:49 - Legacy 1:20:39 - Outro Links A. M. Lyapunov: https://tinyurl.com/3kjuhfns S. Lyapunov: https://tinyurl.com/mury7p3s Smirnov's bio: https://tinyurl.com/6wpffh3z Bissell's essay: https://tinyurl.com/3ds3hubj...
S3 · E10 · 15 Sep 2025 · 2 hr 14 min
ep36 - Markos Papageorgiou: Traffic Control — Theory and Practice
Outline 00:00 – Intro 00:51 – Early steps in research 09:55 – Historical overview of traffic control 25:20 – What is traffic? 34:06 – Road traffic control 45:37 – PI control of road junctions 58:19 – From macroscopic to microscopic simulations and back 1:10:08 – Dynamic traffic assignment 1:21:28 – Return to Greece 1:28:33 – The optimal control problem 1:41:48 – Traffic estimation 1:47:34 – The impact of automation and connectivity 1:59:20 – Traffic as an artificial fluid 2:07:51 – The future...
S3 · E9 · 15 Aug 2025 · 1 hr 47 min
ep35 - Cosimo Della Santina: From Dexterous Manipulation to Soft Robotics and Embodied Intelligence
Outline 00:00 – Intro 01:19 – Early steps: PhD journey & robotic hands 15:42 – What is a soft robot? 23:35 – MIT years & models of soft robots 30:01 – Discretization & underactuation 37:21 – The regulation problem 47:01 – Pros and cons of soft robots 51:42 – The soft inverted pendulum 1:05:27 – Eigenmanifolds 1:15:22 – Physical intelligence 1:26:09 – On machine learning 1:37:49 – Embodied AI & TC on Robot Control 1:44:50 – Advice to future students Links - Cosimo’s...
S3 · E8 · 17 Jul 2025 · 59 min
ep34 - inControl guide to ... Controllability & Observability
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:06 - The big idea 03:42 - Controllability, observability, and ... the space race! 14:52 - Kálmán and the state-space paradigm 00:00 - The math and intuition: state-space basics, definitions, and duality 00:00 - A touch of nonlinearity 00:00 - Developments in the field: a chronological tour 00:00 - Controllability and observability: quo vaditis? 00:00 - Outro Links Kálmán: https://tinyurl.com/bdzj7mtr Controllability: https://tinyurl.com/28s5zxpn Observability: h...
S3 · E7 · 16 Jun 2025 · 1 hr 18 min
ep33 - Mathukumalli Vidyasagar: control synthesis, robotics, randomized algorithms, learning, compressed sensing, non-convex optimization
Outline 00:00 - Intro 00:42 - “Research should be fun” 02:02 - Early steps in research 09:00 - Book writing and meeting C. Desoer 18:33 - Control synthesis via the factorization approach 25:46 - The graph metric 29:27 - Robotics and CAIR 36:00 - Randomized algorithms 40:41 - On learning 44:05 - Neural networks 48:40 - Tata, hidden Markov models, and large deviations theory 55:48 - Picking problems and role of luck 58:07 - Compressed sensing and non-convex optimization 01:02:17 - Interpl...
S3 · E6 · 16 May 2025 · 1 hr 30 min
ep32 - Anders Rantzer: robust control, IQCs, nonlinear and hybrid systems, positivity and scalable control, adaptive control
Outline 00:00 - Intro and early steps in control 06:42 - Journey to the US 08:30 - Kharitonov's theorem and early influences 12:10 - From Lund to KTH (Stockholm) 15:01 - Ascona and collaboration with Megretski 24:06 - The IMA year in Minnesota 33:50 - Integral quadratic constraints 46:10 - KYP lemma and meeting Yakubovich 52:35 - Piecewise hybrid systems 59:41 - Dual to Lyapunov theorem 1:06:48 - Positivity and large scale systems 1:15:25 - Adaptive and dual control 1:25:24 - Future res...
S3 · E5 · 15 Apr 2025 · 2 hr 3 min
ep31 - Miroslav Krstić: nonlinear adaptive control, PDEs, delays, extremum seeking, safety, neural operators for control
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:07 - Early steps 02:47 - Why control? 05:20 - The move to the US 07:40 - The first journal paper 13:30 - What is backstepping? 17:08 - Grad school 25:10 - Stochastic stabilization 29:53 - The interest in PDEs 43:24 - Navier-Stokes equations 52:12 - Hyperbolic PDEs and traffic models 57:51 - Predictors for long delays 1:08:14 - Extremum seeking 1:27:14 - Safe control 1:36:30 - Interplay between machine learning and control 1:42:28 - Back to the roots: robust adaptive c...
S3 · E4 · 17 Feb 2025 · 1 hr 46 min
ep30 - Manfred Morari: A pioneer’s journey through robust, predictive and computational control
Outline 00:00 - Intro 03:26 - Development: ETH Zürich 07:15 - Growth: Minnesota and Wisconsin 36:16 - Productivity: Caltech 53:28 - Change: ETH Zürich 01:37:18 - Continuity: University of Pennsylvania 01:45:36 - Outro Links Manfred’s website: https://tinyurl.com/mryp38w3 Farewell lecture: https://tinyurl.com/2j5uxsp4 Laying the foundations: an advisor’s perspective: https://tinyurl.com/ym5e4437 Internal model control. A unifying review and some new results: https://tinyurl.com/vmm7a4tk...
S3 · E3 · 17 Jan 2025 · 1 hr 30 min
ep29 - Richard Bellman: The Father of Dynamic Programming
Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:42 - Early life 10:24 - WWII, Johns Hopkins, Belleville, Madison 17:17 - Princeton 20:30 - Los Alamos 24:12 - Back to Princeton 31:01 - RAND + Stanford 42:10 - Dynamic programming 46:06 - Project matterhorn 51:00 - Back to RAND 56:14 - Curse of dimensionality 1:02:41 - Divorce and remarriage 1:08:29 - Greenglass affair 1:14:21 - USC 1:18:55 - Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions 1:22:55 - Last years 1:26:08 - Outro Links R. Bellman: https://tinyurl.com...
S3 · E2 · 15 Dec 2024 · 1 hr 29 min
ep28 - Karl Henrik Johansson: Semper in Motu - Hybrid Systems, Wireless and Event-Based Control, Mobility, Cybersecurity, and Societal Challenges
Outline 00:00 Intro 01:19 Swedish control heritage and early steps 05:21 PhD at Lund and relay feedback systems 15:40 Berkeley years 19:58 Hybrid systems 26:46 Networked control systems 30:32 Interaction with industry 34:40 Wireless control systems 40:33 Platooning in freight transport 49:27 Future of mobility 52:55 Event-based control 58:58 Cybersecurity 1:05:10 Societal-scale challenges 1:12:33 Bode lecture reflections 1:15:05 Digital futures 1:23:38 Advice for future students Links Kalle’...
S3 · E1 · 17 Oct 2024 · 2 hr 5 min
ep27 - Munther Dahleh: L1 control, agile robotic maneuvering, abstractions, cascaded failures, markets, data and systems for societal problems
Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:14 - Early steps in control 05:36 - L1 control 17:09 - Relay feedback systems 24:32 - Agile robotic maneuvers 29:31 - Abstractions and models 41:59 - Causality 49:35 - Markets and power grids 1:00:20 - Role of network structure 1:05:03 - Data, systems, and society 1:16:17 - On writing 1:22:57 - Cascaded failures in networks 1:30:40 - Information design 1:34:29 - Data markets 1:42:27 - On economics and engineering 1:48:18 - Systems thinking for societal problems 1:58:2...
S2 · E12 · 21 Aug 2024 · 1 hr 57 min
ep26 - Bart De Moor: subspace identification, linear & multilinear algebra, quantum information, ML
Outline 00:00 - Intro 00:49 - Early education and PhD in control 10:35 - Non-negative linear algebra & modelling uncertainty principle 22:50 - Influence of Willems & the Frisch scheme 34:27 - Subspace identification & stochastic behavioural system theory 38:39 - Stanford experience with Golub & Kailath 53:30 - Return to Leuven: LS-SVMs, quantum information, and beyond 1:07:48 - Multilinear algebra and tensor trains 1:11:59 - Exact/approximate modelling and angles between syste...
S2 · E11 · 15 Jul 2024 · 2 hr 9 min
ep25 - Francesco Bullo: Geometric control, robotic networks, networked systems, mathematical sociology, contraction theory
Outline 01:16 - Intro 02:28 - Early steps in Italy and California 13:00 - From Riemannian geometry … 17:01 - … to geometric control, robotics and locomotion 34:54 - Academic environment at Caltech 35:06 - From single robots to robotic networks 53:51 - Art gallery problem 1:01:37 - Networked and cyber-physical systems 1:21:47 - Contracting dynamics 1:33:07 - Coupled oscillators and power grids 1:47:20 - On mathematical sociology 1:56:44 - Writing and publishing 2:02:14 - About professional ser...
S2 · E10 · 14 Jun 2024 · 1 hr 46 min
ep24 - Brian Douglas: Boeing, Control Videos, Resourcium, Map of Control Theory, Cartoons, Mathworks
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:00 - From Boeing to Planetary Resources 08:57 - The origin of control videos 17:07 - About teaching style 20:52 - The (unnecessary?) math behind controls 26:54 - On interdisciplinarity 31:35 - How to build knowledge fast 48:32 - Resourcium 01:00:49 - The map of control theory 01:11:09 - IFAC Cartoons 01:15:35 - Fundamentals of control theory book 01:24:49 - The role of projects 01:34:27 - Future of control education 01:43:43 - Advice to future students Links Brian’...
S2 · E9 · 15 May 2024 · 2 hr 23 min
ep23 - Bassam Bamieh: Sampled Data Systems, PDEs, Distributed Control of Spatially Invariant Systems, Coherence, Resistive Losses, Cochlear Instabilities, and Stochasticity in Feedback Loops
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:17 - Early Years 04:17 - The “Scenic Route” to Control Theory 12:44 - Sampled Data Systems 22:26 - Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) Identification 28:07 - From Distributed Systems and PDEs ... 38:59 - ... to Distributed Control of Spatially Invariant Systems 49:02 - Taming the Navier-Stokes Equations 50:55 - Advice to Future Students 1:13:12 - Coherence in Large Scale Systems 1:32:28 - On Resistive Losses in Power Systems 1:39:00 - Cochlear Instabilities 1:50:40 - Stoch...
S2 · E8 · 15 Apr 2024 · 1 hr 20 min
ep22 - Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli, Part II: Cyberphysical and hybrid systems, Contracts, Chiplets, Models of computation, Time, Innovative Ecosystems, BioBricks, Neuromorphics
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:28 - Platform-based design (PBD) in biology 16:42 - Cyberphysical systems, automotive industry, hybrid systems 27:32 - Contracts in system design 34:50 - Chiplets 41:48 - About time: the tag signal model 52:15 - Neuromorphics 59:21 - Innovative ecosystems 1:07:35 - Advice to future students 1:16:26 - The role of luck Links BiKi Technologies: https://t.ly/RuaW7 R. Murray: https://t.ly/Zy_Up S. Sastry: https://t.ly/qsf44 C. Tomlin: https://t.ly/tQ0XZ Platf...
S2 · E7 · 15 Mar 2024 · 1 hr 47 min
ep21 - Alberto Sangiovanni Vincentelli, Part I: Classics, EDA, Logic Synthesis, SPICE, Intel x386, Cadence, Synopsis, Platform-based design
Outline 00:00 - Intro 02:40 - Classic Studies 06:51 - Early Steps in Berkeley between Optimization and Circuits Theory 16:04 - Back to Italy... and back to Berkeley 26:29 - The SPICE program and the interaction with IBM 33:30 - Logic Synthesis, Simulated Annealing, Timberwolf 40:57 - The Intel x386, YACR, and ESPRESSO 47:01 - The birth of Cadence and Synopsis 1:06:01 - Corsi e Ricorsi in EDA 1:30:45 - The Shift to Automotive and Platform-Based Design 1:39:06 - Outro Links Alberto’s website: h...
S2 · E6 · 16 Feb 2024 · 1 hr 8 min
ep20 - Aude Billard: From Robot learning to Dexterous Manipulation and Human-Robot Interaction
Outline 00:00 - Intro 00:58 - Early steps… in physics! 05:17 - AI in Edinburgh 08:00 - Connectionism 10:37 - Robot learning 19:02 - Imitation learning 23:00 - On pursuing a PhD 24:45 - Californian chronicles 30:10 - Modularity 33:20 - Challenges in robot learning 39:44 - Dexterous manipulation 43:52 - Dynamical systems 47:37 - Combining ML and control 51:25 - Human-robot interaction 54:24 - Safety and compliance 57:54 - Deadlines for papers 1:06:38 - Advice to future students 1:07:08 - Outro ...
S2 · E5 · 15 Jan 2024 · 58 min
ep19 - Naomi Ehrich Leonard, Part II: Unveiling the Dynamics of Collective Decision-Making from Flocking Starlings to Desert Ants, Political Polarization, and the Creative Dance Between Arts and Control Theory
Outline 00:00 - Intro 01:33 - Starling Flock Formations 07:17 - Harvesters ants in the desert 16:54 - Decision making in the natural world and opinion dynamics 32:08 - A geometric look at political polarization 36:50 - Control theory and dancing 53:25 - CreativeX 55:25 - On creativity 57:47 - Advice to future students Links Andrea Cavagna - http://tinyurl.com/uywn592j Irene Giardina - http://tinyurl.com/4jmk2h5n Starling Flock Networks Manage Uncertainty in Consensus at Low Cost: http:...

About inControl

The first podcast on control theory. inControl shop: https://incontrolpodcast.myshopify.com/

inControl is a English tech & science podcast from Alberto Padoan. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Alberto Padoan
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Monthly
Typical length: 1 hr 32 min
Latest episode: 13 Sep 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1624068002

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