Projects per year
Personal profile
Research profile
Maurice Heemels is a Full professor at the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and Chair of Hybrid and Networked Systems. His research is oriented towards general system and control theory with an emphasis on the development of multi-disciplinary design techniques, across a number of areas including hybrid systems, networked control, resource-aware (event-triggered) control, constrained control including model predictive control (MPC) and cyber-physical systems.
Cyber-physical systems bridge the ‘cyber’ (computation, communication and control) world and the physical world (heating, cooling, motion, vibration...) in next generation high-tech professional systems for applications such as image-based therapies, lithography, and electron microscopy. The mathematical modelling of these CPS require the combination of diverse models from different fields and often lead to hybrid sysems that exhibit both discrete and continuous dynamics (e.g., the combination of finite state machines/automato/communication models on the one hand and difference or differential equations on the other hand). The creation of analysis techniques for hybrid systems and accompanying design tools for CPS of the future is at the heart of Maurice's interests.
Particular design questions are:
- How to conceive resource-aware control strategies moving away from time-triggered controller operation, thereby only using valuable system's resources as computation power and communication bandwidth, when is actually needed to o guarantee closed-loop stability, safety and performance properties? This calls for a paradigm shift in which time-triggered periodic controllers are replaced by asynchronous event-triggered control schemes that only compute or communicate when it is really necessary. Applications include cooperative and automated driving (CACC)
- How to design (wireless) networked control systems connecting sensors, controllers, and actuators over shared media with bandwidth-limitaitons? Applications are diverse ranging from manufacturing plants, to cooperating drones and robots, precision agriculture, etc.
- What switching or hybrid controllers can overcome the limitations of linear time-invariant controllers, as are classicaly used, to meet increasing throughput and accuracy demands in motion control and mechatronic systems? Various innovative strategies are being proposed, including HIGS (hybrid integrator-gain systems), reset controllers, variable-gain controllers, SPANI-filters, etc.
- What are excellent design tools for MPC or other constrained control systems that are computionally feasible, stable, and high-performant while taking care of constraints on control inputs and plant outputs? Our MPC work is exploited in diverse application domains including local hyperthermia for improving the efficacy of cancer treatments, precision agriculture to feed the world in the future and thermal-mechanical problems in lithography machines (in order to sustain Moore's law).
Academic background
Maurice Heemels received his MSc and PhD in mathematics from TU/e in 1995 and 1999, respectively (both summa cum laude, top 5% of students). From 2000 to 2004 he worked at the TU/e Electrical Engineering Department as an Assistant Professor and from 2004 to 2006 at the Embedded Systems Institute (ESI) as a Research Fellow. He joined the department of Mechanical Engineering in 2006, where he is currently a Full Professor in the Control Systems Technology group. Maurice has held visiting professor positions at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Zurich, Switzerland (2001), and the University of California at Santa Barbara, California, USA (2008). He also worked at the Research & Development laboratory of Océ in Venlo, The Netherlands.
Maurice is a Fellow of the IEEE and the Chair of the IFAC Technical Committee 1.5 on "Networked Systems." Maurice served/s as an Associate Editor for the journals IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Automatica, Annual Reviews in Control and Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems. He is currently a Senior Editor for the IFAC/Elsevier journal Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems. Maurice's activities as IPC (co)chair include the European Control Conference 2021 (The Netherlands), IFAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems 2018 (ADHS, Oxford, UK), IFAC Workshop on Distributed Estimation and Control in Networked Systems (NecSys, Germany, 2013) and European Control Conference 2013 (ECC, Switzerland, 2013). He acted also as General Chair of the FAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems 2012 (ADHS, Eindhoven, NL). He was a recipient of a prestigious VICI grant "Wireless Control Systems: A new frontier in Automation." He acquired over 7 MEuro of research funding from NWO, OP-zuid, EU, STW/KWF ("Technology for Oncology"), and industry. Maurice was an invited keynote speaker at various leading conference including European Control Conference (ECC) 2014 (France), AANS 2014 (Italy), NMPC 2012/2015 (NL,Spain), IEEE EBCCSP 2015 (Poland), IEEE CDC 2018 (USA), IFAC NECSYS 2019 (USA), IEEE CODIT 2019 (France), etc.
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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24PPS052 COMEDI: "Cost-effective Mechatronic Design for High-Tech Systems"
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Project Manager), Vermeulen, J. P. M. B. (Project member), Vacancy PHD (Project member) & Wind, M. (Project member)
1/01/24 → 31/12/29
Project: Third tier
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Projection-based Control (PROACTHIS)
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Project Manager), van den Eijnden, S. J. A. M. (Project member), Meijer, T. J. (Project member), Delimpaltadakis, G. (Project member), Bertollo, R. (Project member), Erlandsen, M. (Project member), Oomen, T. A. E. (Project member) & Chu, H. (Project member)
1/11/22 → 31/10/27
Project: Third tier
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Learning based control in MR-guided hyperthermia for 3D adaptive therapy (Learn 2 act)
van der Hagen, D. (Project communication officer), Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Project Manager) & Nouwens, S. (Project member)
1/01/20 → 31/12/24
Project: Second tier
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Automatic fault detection and isolation for wafer scanners
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Project Manager) & Classens, K. (Project member)
1/01/19 → 31/12/23
Project: Research direct
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TKI toeslag 2015 "Drone-based multi-agent system design for farming"
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Project Manager) & Cobbenhagen, A. T. J. R. (Project member)
16/01/15 → 2/10/21
Project: Research direct
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Constraint-Adaptive Model Predictive Control for Radio Frequency Hyperthermia Cancer Treatments
Nouwens, S. A. N. (Corresponding author), Paulides, M. M. & Heemels, W. P. M. H., 4 Feb 2025, (E-pub ahead of print) In: IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology. XX, XResearch output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
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Continuous Approximations of Projected Dynamical Systems via Control Barrier Functions
Delimpaltadakis, G. (Corresponding author), Cortes, J. & Heemels, W. P. M. H., Jan 2025, In: IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 70, 1, p. 681-688 8 p., 10645203.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Academic › peer-review
1 Citation (Scopus) -
Cooperative nonlinear distributed model predictive control with dissimilar control horizons
Chanfreut Palacio, P., Maestre, J. M., Zhu, Q. & Heemels, W. P. M. H., 26 Feb 2025, 2024 IEEE 63rd Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2024. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, p. 6175-6180 6 p. 10886159Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review
Open AccessFile41 Downloads (Pure) -
Data-Efficient Quadratic Q-Learning Using LMIs
van Hulst, J., Heemels, W. P. M. H. & Guerreiro Tomé Antunes, D. J., 26 Feb 2025, 2024 63rd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, CDC 2024. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, p. 1161-1166 6 p. 10886653Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution › Academic › peer-review
File24 Downloads (Pure) -
Distributed design of ultra large-scale control systems: Progress, Challenges, and Prospects
Pedroso, L. (Corresponding author), Batista, P. & Heemels, W. P. M. H., Jan 2025, In: Annual Reviews in Control. 59, 22 p., 100987.Research output: Contribution to journal › Review article › peer-review
Open AccessFile5 Downloads (Pure)
Datasets
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Co-Design of a Controller and Its Digital Implementation: The MOBY-DIC2 Toolbox for Embedded Model Predictive Control
Ravera, A. (Creator), Oliveri, A. (Creator), Lodi, M. (Creator), Bemporad, A. (Creator), Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Contributor), Kerrigan, E. C. (Creator) & Storace, M. (Creator), Code Ocean, 22 Mar 2023
DOI: 10.24433/co.9533320.v1, https://codeocean.com/capsule/1518041/tree/v1
Dataset
Prizes
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2020: DISC PhD Award for one of my PhD students (Stefan Heijmans)
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Recipient), 31 Mar 2015
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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ASML-award for the best fundamental Ph.D. thesis @ TU/e
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Recipient), 2000
Prize: TU/e › Other › Scientific
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Automatica Outstanding Service Award (IFAC)
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Recipient), 2014
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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Best Paper Award @ 3rd International Conference on Event-Based Control, Communication and Signal Processing (EBCCSP) 2017
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Recipient), 2017
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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EECI European PhD Award for one of my PhD students (role: supervisor)
Dolk, V. (Recipient), 2019
Prize: Other › Career, activity or publication related prizes (lifetime, best paper, poster etc.) › Scientific
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Annual Reviews in Control (Journal)
Heemels, M. (Editorial board member)
2016 → …Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial activity › Scientific
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Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems (Journal)
Heemels, M. (Editorial board member)
2016 → …Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial activity › Scientific
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IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (Journal)
Heemels, M. (Editorial board member)
2016 → 2017Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial activity › Scientific
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Automatica (Journal)
Heemels, M. (Editorial board member)
2009 → 2015Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial activity › Scientific
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Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems (Journal)
Heemels, M. (Editorial board member)
2008 → 2015Activity: Publication peer-review and editorial work types › Editorial activity › Scientific
Courses
Research areas
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Cyber-Physical Systems and Systems Engineering
Knippenberg, S. C. M. (Content manager), Hanselaar, C. (Researcher), Wagemakers, N. (Content manager), Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Researcher), Reniers, M. A. (Researcher), Etman, L. F. P. (Researcher), van de Mortel-Fronczak, J. M. (Researcher), van Beek, D. A. (Researcher), Guerreiro Tomé Antunes, D. J. (Researcher), Chong, M. S. (Researcher), Chanfreut Palacio, P. (Researcher), van Eekelen, J. A. W. M. (Researcher), Fokkink, W. J. (Researcher) & Wilschut, T. (Researcher)
Impact: Research Topic/Theme (at group level)
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Symposium of the European Network for Nonsmooth Dynamics 2024 (ENNSD)
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Researcher), Hanselaar, C. (Content manager), Delimpaltadakis, G. (Content manager) & van den Eijnden, S. J. A. M. (Content manager)
Impact: Research Topic/Theme (at group level)
File
Thesis
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Optimal positive control and optimal control with positive state entries
Heemels, W. P. M. H. (Author), Hautus, M. L. J. (Supervisor 1), van Eijndhoven, S. J. L. (Supervisor 2) & Stoorvogel, A. A. (Supervisor 2), 31 Dec 1995Student thesis: Master