CAP Seminar Series
Title: Failing fast, degrading slow: detecting and mitigating anomalies in dynamical systems across time domains
Speaker: Riccardo M.G. Ferrari, Delft University of Technology
Venue: EENG 909B
Date and Time: Tuesday 17 February 2026, 11:30-12:30
Abstract: Critical infrastructures such as power grids, communication and energy networks; potentially dangerous industrial processes such as nuclear or chemical plants; transportation systems or autonomous robots. These are examples of systems for which safety and resiliency should be an integral part of their design. The occurrence of anomalies such as faults or cyber attacks can lead to unacceptable losses, or simply make the operation of those systems uneconomical. Detecting and accommodating anomalies before they lead to extreme consequences is thus a key requirement. In this talk we will explore how we can leverage information at different time scales to build estimation, detection and mitigation algorithms for both physical and cyber anomalies. Examples will include using barrier functions to detect anomalies that can compromise safety along a given time horizon, model-based and data driven algorithms that can track degradation in lithium ion batteries occurring at different time scales, and event-triggered mechanisms where transmission times are used for hiding information that helps in detecting cyber attacks. Finally, some recent results will be presented on nonlinear filters based on the solution of the Fokker-Planck-Kolmogorov equation, which can be used as building blocks for estimating anomalies in stochastic dynamical systems.
Biography: Riccardo M.G. Ferrari is a Marie Curie Alumnus and an Associate Professor in Fault Tolerant Control at the Delft Center for Systems and Control, within the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (ME) at Delft University of Technology. He investigates how to make dynamical systems safe and resilient against faults, malicious cyber-attacks and degradation phenomena, fighting uncertainty while doing so. His research is applied to problems in wind energy, in the aerospace and in the automotive sectors, in particular for electric and for cooperative autonomous vehicles. He received the “Laurea” degree (Cum Laude and printing honours) in Electronic Engineering in 2004 and the Ph.D. degree in Information Engineering in 2009, both from the University of Trieste, Italy. He is the recipient of the 2005 Giacomini Award of the Italian Acoustic Society, and has authored and co-authored over 100 papers published in international peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings. He covered a unique career path that led him to hold both academical and industrial R&D positions, in particular as researcher and executive manager in the field of process instrumentation and control for the steelmaking sector. In 2005 he earned a B.A. in Classical Piano from the “G. Tartini” Conservatory of Music of Trieste (Italy).
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