Dr.-Ing. Julian Berberich received the Bürkert University Prize for his outstanding dissertation "Stability and Robustness in Data-Driven Predictive Control" which he completed at the Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control under the supervision of Prof. Frank Allgöwer. The award was presented at the academic annual celebration 2024 of the University of Stuttgart, which took place on November 15 in the grand lecture hall on Campus City Center.
Julian’s dissertation represents a significant advancement in the field of data-driven control with a focus on model predictive control (MPC). Although data-based control methods have become increasingly important in recent years, they often do not provide guarantees for important properties such as stability or robustness of the controlled system. However, such guarantees are essential for applications in complex and safety-critical systems. Julian’s work precisely addresses this problem. His doctoral thesis contains new data-driven MPC algorithms that do not require a model of the underlying system, but still exhibit rigorous mathematical guarantees for stability and robustness. The thesis covers diverse scenarios ranging from linear systems with noise-free data to more realistic formulations including noise and nonlinearities, and the developed methods are successfully applied in an experimental application.
About Bürkert University Prize
The Bürkert University Prize (formerly "Preis der Freunde der Universität") is given by the Christian Bürkert Foundation for outstanding scientific achievements. It is presented annually to three dissertations at the University of Stuttgart across all disciplines and is endowed with 5,000 euros.
We congratulate Julian on this well-deserved recognition!
