{"title":"Adaptive optimal resource allocation for isolation interventions: Flattening the curve","authors":"Mohamed Arnouss , Yezekael Hayel , Karam Allali","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100367","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100367","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Economic savings achieved through targeted isolation avoid additional disease burdens and effectively address the disease-economy trade-offs in epidemic control. In this study, we use phase-space analysis to derive the explicit solution of the optimal control problem that minimize the infection peak given budget limitation. The optimal policy obtained is an adaptive control where the isolation rate dynamically adjusts according to the current epidemic state. We show that targeted isolation control policy achieves the same infection peak as transmission reduction policies under equivalent budgets, while avoiding broad socio-economic disruptions. Additionally, we show through numerical simulations that the control resolves the epidemic faster and reduces total infections. This demonstrates that targeted isolation can strike a balance between public health and economic stability, offering actionable insights for public health decisions moving forward.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100367"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173694","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Mordecai Opoku Ohemeng , Bernard Asamoah Afful , Joseph Ackora-Prah , Benedict Barnes , Ishmael Takyi
{"title":"Enhancing autonomous vehicle control with lateral error feedback analysis","authors":"Mordecai Opoku Ohemeng , Bernard Asamoah Afful , Joseph Ackora-Prah , Benedict Barnes , Ishmael Takyi","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2025.100359","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2025.100359","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper develops a general Lyapunov-based framework for state-feedback control of nonlinear discrete-time systems, where the controller is designed to offer formal assurance of the monotonic decrease of a quadratic Lyapunov function while explicitly accounting for actuator saturation (input constraints). The framework is first presented in a general setting, emphasizing stability conditions under practical limits, and then applied to a case study in autonomous driving. The core difficulty lies in analytically deriving the feedback gains to satisfy both the Hurwitz stability criteria and desired transient (damping) specifications, while maintaining a low-complexity structure. Using a simplified vehicle model, two controllers are compared: a basic proportional feedback law and a Lyapunov-stable controller (LSC) that explicitly incorporates lateral deviation into the control policy. Both controllers are evaluated on real-world driving trajectories from the comma2k19 dataset. Simulation results demonstrate that the LSC significantly improves lane-keeping performance and accelerates convergence to the equilibrium compared to the baseline controller. The novelty of this work lies in bridging Lyapunov stability analysis with practical control evaluation on real driving data, offering a systematic approach to controller design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100359"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145925980","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Compatible realisation of control and identification of direct adaptive control via probing signal auto-elimination","authors":"Akira Takakura , Takashi Yokoyama , Takahiro Nozaki , Shuichi Adachi , Hiromitsu Ohmori","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100375","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100375","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The model reference adaptive control system is an adaptive controller that maintains the control performance even when the uncertainty of the controlled system’s parameters is high, and its design methodology is well established. In particular, the direct MRACS excels in responsiveness; however, it suffers from the problem that its adjustable parameters do not converge to their true values. To converge the adjustable parameters to their true values, a conventional method involves injecting a probing signal to satisfy the PE property; however, this compromises the control performance. Thus, a control error-based probing signal auto-elimination scheme is proposed in this study, which adaptively regulates the probing signal based solely on the control error without predefined elimination timing. This enables the identification of adjustable parameters during transient phases, while automatically suppressing the probing signal once sufficient tracking performance is achieved. Furthermore, unlike existing probing-based methods, the proposed scheme allows re-injection of the probing signal when performance degradation is detected, thereby achieving a compatible realisation of identification and control within a single framework. Therefore, the proposed scheme simultaneously contributes to the identification and control, significantly reducing the tracking error. The validity of the proposed structure was confirmed by simulations under plant variation conditions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100375"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146077720","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bendegúz M. Györök , Maarten Schoukens , Tamás Péni , Roland Tóth
{"title":"Orthogonal-by-construction augmentation of physics-based input–output models","authors":"Bendegúz M. Györök , Maarten Schoukens , Tamás Péni , Roland Tóth","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100376","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100376","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper proposes a novel orthogonal-by-construction parametrization for augmenting physics-based input–output models with a learning component in an additive sense. The parametrization allows to jointly optimize the parameters of the physics-based model and the learning component. Unlike the commonly applied additive (parallel) augmentation structure, the proposed formulation eliminates overlap in representation of the system dynamics, thereby preserving the uniqueness of the estimated physical parameters, ultimately leading to enhanced model interpretability. By theoretical analysis, we show that, under mild conditions, the method is statistically consistent and guarantees recovery of the true physical parameters. With further analysis regarding the asymptotic covariance matrix of the identified parameters, we also prove that the proposed structure provides a clear separation between the physics-based and learning components of the augmentation structure. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through simulation studies, showing accurate reproduction of the data-generating dynamics without sacrificing consistent estimation of the physical parameters.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100376"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173651","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Robust delay-time and state estimation for continuous-discrete linear system using unscented H-infinity filter","authors":"Noritaka Kinjo, Shin Kawai, Triet Nguyen-Van","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100380","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100380","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper addresses the problem of online estimation of input time-delay in continuous–discrete (CD) linear systems. Motivated by practical applications where both continuous-time disturbances and measurement noise are present, we propose a robust delay and state estimator based on the Unscented H-infinity Filter (UHF). To extend the UHF framework to CD systems, we redesign the performance index to penalize the energy of continuous-time disturbances and derive the discrete-time state evolution under worst-case continuous-time disturbances, yielding a prediction step without probabilistic assumptions on delay variability or any disturbances. Through numerical simulations, we demonstrate that the proposed estimator achieves superior robustness and accuracy compared with the Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF).</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100380"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146173696","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Direct data-driven interpolation and approximation of linear parameter-varying system trajectories","authors":"Chris Verhoek , Ivan Markovsky , Roland Tóth","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2025.100352","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2025.100352","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We consider the problem of estimating missing values in trajectories of <em>linear parameter-varying</em> (LPV) systems. We solve this <em>interpolation</em> problem for the class of shifted-affine LPV systems. Conditions for the existence and uniqueness of solutions are given and a direct data-driven algorithm for its computation is presented, i.e., the data-generating system is not given by a parametric model but is implicitly specified by data. We illustrate the applicability of the proposed solution on illustrative examples of a mass–spring-damper system with exogenous and endogenous parameter variation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100352"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145791729","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identification of reaction–diffusion systems from finitely many non-local noisy measurements via exponential fitting","authors":"Rami Katz , Giulia Giordano , Dmitry Batenkov","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2025.100350","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2025.100350","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Given a reaction–diffusion equation with unknown right-hand side, we consider the nonlinear inverse problem of estimating the associated leading eigenvalues and initial condition Fourier coefficients from a finite number of non-local noisy measurements. We define a reconstruction (i.e., estimation) criterion and, for small enough noise, we prove existence and uniqueness of the desired estimates. We derive closed-form expressions for the first-order condition numbers and bounds for their asymptotic behavior in a regime when the number of measured samples is fixed and the inter-sampling interval length is arbitrarily large. When computing the sought estimates numerically, our simulations show that the exponential fitting algorithm ESPRIT is first-order optimal, since its first-order condition numbers have the same asymptotic behavior as the analytic condition numbers in the considered regime.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100350"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145697833","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nicola Licini, Marcelo Alves Santos, Fabio Previdi, Antonio Ferramosca
{"title":"A robust tube-based MPC approach for safer insulin dosing","authors":"Nicola Licini, Marcelo Alves Santos, Fabio Previdi, Antonio Ferramosca","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100393","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100393","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We present a robust model predictive control (MPC) approach for safer insulin dosing in artificial pancreas systems. The method applies estimation-informed constraint tightening to maintain safety under disturbances and unmodeled dynamics. Safety margins, derived from estimator confidence, are enforced as tube-based tightening on state and input constraints. A zone control objective targets a glucose band with asymmetric weights that emphasize avoidance of low glucose. Simulation studies show fewer low glucose events and lower violation risk than a nominal MPC baseline, with comparable dosing effort. The contribution of this work is a robust zone MPC scheme that maps estimator uncertainty into safety margins for insulin dosing.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100393"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147384866","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Lingling Chen , Yuxin Dong , Ziqian Wang , Chipu Zhang , Zhihao Yang , Pengyue Lai , Zhihao Liu
{"title":"Decoupled model predictive control with SCESO for contact force regulation of a shape-adaptive shield in assistive toileting robots","authors":"Lingling Chen , Yuxin Dong , Ziqian Wang , Chipu Zhang , Zhihao Yang , Pengyue Lai , Zhihao Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100390","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100390","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To overcome the limitations of discomfort and physical constraints in existing wearable nursing devices, this paper proposes a non-wearable shape-adaptive shield integrated with real-time pressure sensing for assistive toileting robots. The shield employs a bionic continuum structure with multiple adjustable spine segments and flexible sensors, enabling safe body conformity and contact force monitoring across diverse body types. To address multi-input multi-output coupling that compromise force control stability, an integral-type state feedback decoupling method is developed to mitigate inter-segment coupling. Furthermore, a novel control strategy integrating State-Compensated Extended State Observer (SCESO) and Model Predictive Control (MPC) is proposed to optimize dynamic force tracking under uncertainties. Simulations and experiments demonstrate that the decoupling-SCESO-MPC framework achieves superior tracking accuracy (average root mean square error of 0.017 N across 10 subjects with diverse body types) and robust performance, thereby providing a practical solution for safe, comfortable, and adaptive human–robot interaction in assistive toileting scenarios.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100390"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147384869","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rohan Palanikumar , Ahmed A. Elgohary , Victoria Grushkovskaya , Sameh A. Eisa
{"title":"Model-free source seeking of exponentially convergent unicycle: Theoretical and robotic experimental results","authors":"Rohan Palanikumar , Ahmed A. Elgohary , Victoria Grushkovskaya , Sameh A. Eisa","doi":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100378","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ifacsc.2026.100378","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper introduces a novel model-free, real-time unicycle-based source seeking design. This design autonomously steers the unicycle dynamic system towards the extremum point of an objective function or physical/scalar signal that is unknown expression-wise, but accessible via measurements. A key contribution of this paper is that the introduced design converges exponentially to the extremum point of objective functions (or scalar signals) that behave locally like a higher-degree power function (e.g., fourth-degree polynomial function) as opposed to locally quadratic objective functions, the usual case in literature. We provide theoretical results and design characterization, supported by a variety of simulation results that demonstrate the robustness of the proposed design, including cases with different initial conditions and measurement delays/noise. Also, for the first time in the literature, we provide experimental robotic results that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed design and its exponential convergence ability. These experimental results confirm that the proposed exponentially convergent extremum seeking design can be practically realized on a physical robotic platform under real-world sensing and actuation constraints.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":29926,"journal":{"name":"IFAC Journal of Systems and Control","volume":"35 ","pages":"Article 100378"},"PeriodicalIF":1.8,"publicationDate":"2026-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147384917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}