Personale docente

CURRENT POSITION
Luca Consolini is Associate Professor at Dipartimento d Ingegneria dell’Informazione at the University of Parma, Italy.

BRIEF VITA
-He was born in Parma on 11/6/1976.
-From 1995 to 2000, he was a student at the Department of Information Engineering of the University of Parma.
-In December 2000 and December 2001, he was awarded as best student of the third and the fourth year of Electronic Engineering of the University of Parma.
-In 1999, he won a scholarship for going in July and August to Pitzer College, CA, USA, to study English language.
-In 2000, he won a scholarship to study English Language in Cardiff, UK.
-In December 2000, he received the degree in Electronic Engineering, with full marks (110/100 e lode).
-In 2001, from August to December and in 2002 from September to December, he was been visiting scholar at the System and Control Group, Department of Electric and Computer Engineering at the University of Toronto, Canada, under the supervision of prof. Manfredi Maggiore.
-In December 2001, he was awarded the "Paolo Conti" prize, for best thesis in Electronic Engineering of academic year 1999/2000, at the University of Parma.
-From 2002 to 2004, we was a PHD student at the Department of Information Engineering ("Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Informazione") at the University of Parma, under the supervision of prof. Aurelio Piazzi.
-On March the 21st, 2005, he was awarded the PHD title, the PHD thesis was entitled "Path following and controlled invariance for nonlinear systems".
From 2005 to 2009, he was a post-Doc at the University of Parma, researching on the topic "Synthesis methods for high performance controllers with constrained inputs".
-From 2009 to 2014 he was assistant professor of automatic control at the same university.
-In 2014, he obtained the Italian professorship abilitation for the role of associate professor in sector ING-INF/04, Automatica.
-In November 2014, he became associate professor at the University of Parma.
-In November 2020, he obtained the Italian professorship abilitation for the role of full professor in sector ING-INF/04, Automatica.

TEACHING
Courses at the University of Parma
-Digital Control (6 credits), from academic year 2004/2005 to 2010/2011.
-Module of MATLAB programming in the course of Numerical Analysis, in 2008/2009.
-Linear Systems Theory (9 credits), from 2011/2012 to now.
-Modeling and Simulation (6 credits), from 2014/2015 to 2017/2018.
-Module on Discrete Systems control (3 credits) in the course of Automation systems, from 2014/2015 to now.
-Course for PhD students on numerical methods for the solution of ODE and PDE (1 1/2 credits), in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014.
-Identification and Adaptive Control in 2018/2019 (Italian) and 2019/2020 (English).

SCIENTIFIC ACTIVITY

Main research topics: control of mechanical systems, dynamic inversion for nonlinear systems, tracking and path following, formation control for nonholonomic vehicles, time-optimal control, control of systems with symmetry properties, numerical methods for dynamic programming.
Some of these research topics are detailed below.

Virtual constraints for mechanical systems
In collaboration with Manfredi Maggiore and Chris Nielsen, he developed a method for path-following control for PVTOL aircraft, based on virtual constraints. This method has been applied to the control of various mechanical systems such as Getz's bicycle model. Subsequent work with Manfredi Maggiore allowed the development of a self-contained theory for virtual holonomic constraints for Euler-Lagrange mechanical systems. In collaboration with the PhD student A. Costalunga, we extended this theory to the more general setting of Riemannian mechanics and are developing methods for the synthesis of virtual holonomic constraints with stable dynamics.

Minimum time control
In collaboration with Aurelio Piazzi, he addressed the problem of minimum time control for linear scalar system with constraints both on input and output. This method has been applied to the control of mechanical systems. In collaboration with O. Gerelli, he developed some methods to deal with minimum-time problems for nonlinear systems. More recently, in collaboration with M. Locatelli, he developed methods for the optimal speed planning for mobile robots and robotic manipulators with optimal time-complexity.

Homotopy method for stable inversion of nonlinear, nonminimum phase systems
In collaboration with Mario Tosques, he developed a homotopy-based method for dynamic inversion of nonlinear nonminimum phase systems. This method has been applied to the exact tracking problem for many mechanical systems, such as the PVTOL aircraft, the inverted pendulum, the motorcycle and the spherical pendulum.

Formation control for nonholonomic vehicles
In collaboration with M. Tosques, F. Morbidi and D.Prattichizzo, he studied general formations of nonholonomic vehicles defined by a constraint function that defines the relations that have to be satisfied among the elements of the formation.

Optimization of sensor networks
Together with G. Ferrari and P. Medagliani he studied a problem of optimal power allocation in a sensor network.

Control of Power lines
Together with G. Buticchi and E. Lorenzani, he studied the problem of DC-current component removal in power transmission lines.

Numerical methods for dynamic programming
In collaboration with M. Locatelli and the PhD students P. Micelli and M. Laurini, he is working on fast numerical methods for the solution of the Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman equation with application to the automatic parking of road vehicles.

Invited seminars
-September 2001, at the System Control Group of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Toronto University, Canada on Path Following for nonholonomic systems.
-December 2007, at University of Pavia, "An homotopy based method for exact tracking of nonlinear nonminimum phase systems".
-November 2009, at Padua University, "Conditions for exponential dichotomy and its applications to tracking for nonlinear nonminimum phase systems".
-April 2012, Purdue University, USA, "Virtual Holonomic Constraints for the control of mechanical systems".
-2012, University of Toronto, Canada, "Virtual Holonomic Constraints for the control of mechanical systems"
-2019, University of Toronto, Canada, “Graph-based optimization algorithms for speed and trajectory planning”.

Review activities and activity in conferences
-Outstanding reviewer for Automatica for year 2017.
-Reviews for Journals Automatica, IEEE Trans. on Automatic Control, IEEE Trans. on Robotics, IEEE Trans. on Control Systems Technology, Int. Jrnl. of Robust and Nonlinear Control, Asian Jrnl. of Control, Information Sciences and for conferences CDC, ACC, ECC, IFAC, ICRA, IROS.
-He co-organized, together with Manfredi Maggiore and Mario Tosques, the invited session “Path Following for Nonlinear Systems: Theory and Applications” at the American Control Conference in 2009.

Supervision of PhD students
He has been supervisor of the following PhD students:
-Alessandro Costalunga: Virtual Holonomic Constraints for mechanical systems;
-Piero Micelli: Algorithms for motion planning in parking problems based on the solution of the Hamilton Jacobi Bellman equation;
-Francesco Denaro: Development and implementation of methods for the control of weight filling machines;
-Mattia Laurini: Consensus acceleration in the numerical solution of dynamic programming problems.
He is currently supervisor of the following PhD students:
-Gabriele Calzavara (co-supervisioned): Predictive maintenance for pharmaceutical lyophilizers;
-Stefano Ardizzoni: multi-vehicle planning and coordination.

Participation in PhD committees
-2013, University of Nice, committee for the evaluation of Andrea Abelli´s PhD thesis.
-2015, Trondheim University (NTNU), committee for the evaluation of Ehsan Rezapour´s PhD thesis.

Awards for scientific activity
-Award for the best interactive presentation at conference Automatica.it for the work coauthored with Manfredi Maggiore "Virtual Holonomic Constraints for Euler-Lagrange systems".

Past participations in national projects
-He participated in research units of Italian national research projects (PRIN), in particular in PRIN 2002, coordinated by Mario Milanese, PRIN 2004, coordinated by Franco Blanchini, and PRIN 2006, coordinated by Franco Blanchini.

Contracts and collaborations with companies, results on technology transfer

He was scientific manager of the following projects with industry
-From 2011 to 2014, 4 contracts with OCME company in Parma for
Modelling and simulating a dancer machine used in packing systems,
Modelling and simulating transport systems in a packaging line, Developing and implementing of a control algorithm for weight filling machine
-In 2011 and 2013, he collaborated with Parker Hannifin Corp. in Chicago on the control of varial displacement piston pumps and hydraulic fans.
-In 2013, he was scientic tutor for company Raw Power s.r.l., in the frame of a research program on Agricoltural Mechanics entitled "More Electric Tractor".
-In 2015, contract with Magneti Marelli SpA for the development of a park planning system for road vehicles
-In 2018, contract with Magneti Marelli SpA for the optimization of the park planning system for road vehicles
-In 2018, together with Gianluigi Ferrari, contract with GlaxoSmithKline Manufacturing SpA on the modeling/predictive maintenance of a lyophiler.
-In 2019, contract with OCME for the motion planning of a multi-robot palletizer machine.
-In 2020, contract with OCME for the motion planning/coordination of a fleet of LGV vehicles.

-Co-inventor of patent 102017000073722 (UA2017A004743) "Procedimento di pianificazione di percorso per il calcolo di manovre di parcheggio ottimale per veicoli stradali e sistema corrispondente", in collaboration with Magneti Marelli S.p.A., conceded on 29/10/2019.

Editorial activities
-Associate Editor for ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, since
15-06-2020.
-Associate Editor for IROS 2019 and 2020 conference.
-Member of the IEEE Technology Conference Editorial Board (TCEB) since January 2020.
-Member of IEEE Conference Editorial Board since 2020.
-Associate Editor for CCTA 2020 and ACC 2020 conferences.

Bibliometric indices as of January 2020.
Number of publications:
- 39 Journal publications
- 67 Conference publications.
Total number of citations:
- Google scholar: 1655.
- Scopus: 1194.
H-index:
- Google scholar: 19.
- Scopus: 15.