Serial robotic manipulators consist of a sequence of rigid links connected in series, forming an open kinematic chain. They are generally characterized by a large workspace and high dexterity. However, despite these advantages, they are not always well suited for tasks that require high speeds or accelerations and/or high precision, due to their limited stiffness and accuracy. In such cases, parallel kinematic manipulators (PKMs) often represent a more suitable alternative. The fundamental principle of PKM mechanical design relies on the use of at least two kinematic chains connecting the fixed base to a moving platform, with each chain incorporating at least one actuator. This architecture enables an effective distribution of loads among the chains. Consequently, PKMs offer significant advantages over their serial counterparts in terms of stiffness, speed, accuracy, and payload capacity.
Nevertheless, PKMs pose several challenging control issues, including highly nonlinear dynamics, kinematic and actuation redundancy, modeling uncertainties, and the existence of singular configurations. For instance, in high-speed repetitive robotic applications such as food packaging and waste sorting, the primary objective is to achieve short cycle times. This objective demands not only fast motion execution but also rapid stabilization, while simultaneously maintaining robustness and performance in the presence of disturbances and varying operational conditions. Consequently, the control of such robotic systems must take all these aspects into account, making it a particularly challenging problem.
This talk, after highlighting the main control challenges and application domains of PKMs, presents an overview of several advanced control strategies developed for high-speed and high-precision industrial applications, including food packaging, waste sorting, machining, and motion simulation. The proposed approaches are primarily based on nonlinear robust and adaptive control techniques and have been validated through real-time experiments on various PKM prototypes.
Prof. Ahmed CHEMORI
LIRMM, University of Montpellier, CNRS, France
Ahmed CHEMORI received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in automatic control from the Polytechnic Institute of Grenoble, France, in 2001 and 2005, respectively. During the 2004-2005 academic year, he was a Research and Teaching Assistant at the Laboratoire de Signaux et Systèmes (LSS, CentraleSupélec) and at Université Paris 11. He subsequently joined GIPSA-lab (formerly LAG) as a CNRS postdoctoral researcher.
He is currently a Senior Researcher at the CNRS in automatic control and robotics, affiliated with LIRMM laboratory. His research interests include nonlinear control (robust, adaptive, and predictive approaches) and their real-time applications in various areas of robotics, including parallel robotics, underwater robotics, wearable robotics, and underactuated systems. He is the author or co-author of more than 190 scientific publications, including journal articles, patents, books, book chapters, and conference proceedings. He has co-supervised 26 Ph.D. theses (including 21 defended) and more than 40 M.Sc. theses. He currently serves as a Technical Editor for the journal IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics.
He has also served as a TPC/IPC member and Associate Editor for several international conferences, including IEEE IROS, IEEE RO-MAN, IFAC ALCOS, IFAC CAMS, and the IFAC World Congress, among others, and has organized multiple scientific events. He is an IEEE Senior Member and an IFAC member of Technical Committees TC1.2 (Adaptive and Learning Systems), TC4.2 (Mechatronic Systems), TC4.3 (Robotics), and TC7.2 (Marine Systems)..
Hybrid systems, characterized by the interaction of continuous-time dynamics and discrete-event processes, have become a fundamental framework for modeling and controlling modern cyber-physical systems. Traditional analysis methods often treat continuous and discrete dynamics separately, leading to fragmented theoretical developments and limited scalability. The theory of time scales offers a unified mathematical framework that bridges continuous and discrete domains, enabling the analysis, control, and optimization of hybrid systems within a single formalism.
This presentation introduces the foundations of the time scales approach and highlights its relevance for the modeling and control of hybrid dynamical systems. Particular attention is devoted to applications in Multi-Agent Systems (MAS), where agents may interact through both continuous-time evolution and event-driven communication protocols. We discuss recent advances in consensus, coordination, synchronization, and distributed control under hybrid interaction mechanisms.
Through illustrative examples and case studies, the time scales framework is shown to provide powerful tools for analyzing stability, convergence, and robustness while offering new perspectives for the design of intelligent, networked, and autonomous systems. The presentation concludes with current challenges and emerging research directions at the intersection of hybrid systems, time scales calculus, and cooperative autonomous agents.
Prof. Mohamed DJEMAI
IEEE Senior Member, IFAC TC Member,
Vice President CNU-61, Director of the Science Research and Valorisation Division, ENSEA, France.
Professor Mohamed Djemai is a Full Professor in Control Engineering and Intelligent Systems at ENSEA, France. He received his PhD in Control Engineering in 1996 and his Habilitation to Direct Research (HDR) in 2005. His research interests include automatic control, hybrid and autonomous systems, robotics, multi-agent systems, fault diagnosis, and cyber-physical systems, using time scale approach, with applications in industry, energy, and transportation.
Professor Djemai has authored more than 120 scientific publications, 4 books and 160 conferences papers, and has led numerous national and international research projects. He has made significant contributions to the advancement of control systems engineering and intelligent autonomous technologies through research, innovation, and academic leadership.
The agricultural sector faces enormous challenges worldwide, which compromise global food security for an ever-increasing population. Global warming and climate change, together with the deleterious effects of past and current agricultural practices, have contributed to severe water scarcity and soil degradation across the globe.
Precision agriculture aims to manage resources (inputs, water) to optimize crop productivity, while ensuring economical and environmental sustainability of agricultural practices. There has been tremendous progress in this area through the integration of information from multiple sensors, including satellite imagery, local fixed IoT sensors, and moving sensors, onboard UAVs and UGVs.
Agriculture 5.0 is the ongoing agricultural revolution that aims to enhance precision agriculture through the use of Robotics, AI, and human interaction, to go beyond traditional field-level monitoring and intervene at plant-level using eco-friendly practices that increase ecosystem resilience, reduce environmental impact, optimize resource use, and enhance soil health.
Nonetheless, current efforts in agricultural robotics are mainly focused on the robotization of current practices and not on the Robotic Transformation that would change the paradigm in agriculture.
This presentation addresses current trends and open challenges in agricultural robotics, and how Physical AI, through embodied perception and action, allied with intelligent machine design, can support the development of autonomous agroecological robots capable of operating robustly in unstructured agricultural environments.
Prof. Rui Moura COELHO
Universidade de Lisboa Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
Rui Moura Coelho is an A. Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Instituto Superior Técnico of the University of Lisbon, in the area of Control, Automation and Industrial Informatics, and a member of the Human Robotics Lab at IST.
Rui holds a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from IST (2021) and a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering from IST and the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, Sweden). His research focuses on biomechanics, systems control, mobile robotics, and human-robot interaction, applied to biomedical engineering, in particular surgical and assistive robotics, and to the industrial and agricultural sectors.
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