Control
If it moves, we control it.
Our expertise in this area covers multivariable, nonlinear, optimal and model-predictive control theory, nonlinear estimation, nonlinear dynamical systems, and mechanical design. We conduct both fundamental and applied research targeting a wide range of applications including autonomous driving, factory automation and HVAC systems.
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Researchers
Stefano
Di Cairano
Yebin
Wang
Avishai
Weiss
Ankush
Chakrabarty
Scott A.
Bortoff
Abraham P.
Vinod
Christopher R.
Laughman
Daniel N.
Nikovski
Arvind
Raghunathan
Vedang M.
Deshpande
Abraham
Goldsmith
Philip V.
Orlik
William S.
Yerazunis
Purnanand
Elango
Hongtao
Qiao
Chungwei
Lin
Jianlin
Guo
Alexander
Schperberg
Toshiaki
Koike-Akino
Yanting
Ma
Matthew
Brand
Dehong
Liu
Nobuyuki
Yoshikawa
Jordan
Leung
Pedro
Miraldo
Bingnan
Wang
Ye
Wang
Gordon
Wichern
Petros T.
Boufounos
Hassan
Mansour
Zhaolin
Ren
Kento
Tomita
Jinyun
Zhang
Siddarth
Jain
Jing
Liu
Saviz
Mowlavi
Kieran
Parsons
Hongbo
Sun
Darshan
Gadginmath
Kei
Suzuki
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Awards
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AWARD MERL intern and Researchers wins 2025 IEEE CCTA Best Student Paper Award Date: August 27, 2025
Awarded to: Yingjie Hu (Student, Intern), Karl Berntorp, Stefano Di Cairano (MERL Researchers)
MERL Contact: Stefano Di Cairano
Research Areas: Control, Dynamical Systems, Signal ProcessingBrief- MERL intern Yingjie Hu was recognized as the winner of the 2025 IEEE CCTA Best Student Paper Award for the paper "Optimal Measurement Projection in GNSS-RTK Factor Graph Optimization" written in collaboration with MERL Researchers Karl Berntorp and Stefano Di Cairano during the internship at MERL
The paper develops methods for measurement projections for reducing the computational burden of factor graph optimization algorithms in GNSS applications, thus enabling their use in real-time in a wider range of positioning applications.
The IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Application is the conference of the IEEE Control Systems Society focused on applications and technological advances of control systems
- MERL intern Yingjie Hu was recognized as the winner of the 2025 IEEE CCTA Best Student Paper Award for the paper "Optimal Measurement Projection in GNSS-RTK Factor Graph Optimization" written in collaboration with MERL Researchers Karl Berntorp and Stefano Di Cairano during the internship at MERL
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AWARD MERL work receives IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering Best New Application Paper Award from IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Date: May 19, 2025
Awarded to: Yehan Ma, Yebin Wang, Stefano Di Cairano, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Jianlin Guo, Philip Orlik, Xinping Guan and Chenyang Lu
MERL Contacts: Stefano Di Cairano; Jianlin Guo; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Philip V. Orlik; Yebin Wang
Research Areas: Communications, Control, Machine LearningBrief- The paper “Smart Actuation for End-Edge Industrial Control Systems”, co-authored by MERL intern Yehan Ma, MERL researchers Yebin Wang, Stefano Di Cairano, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Jianlin Guo, and Philip Orlik, and academic collaborators Xinping Guan and Chenyang Lu, was recognized as the Best New Application Paper of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE), for "a new industrial automation solution that ensures safety operation through coordinated co-design of edge model predictive control and local actuation".
The award recognizes the best application paper published in T-ASE over the previous calendar year, for the significance of new applications, technical merit, originality, potential impact on the field, and clarity of presentation.
- The paper “Smart Actuation for End-Edge Industrial Control Systems”, co-authored by MERL intern Yehan Ma, MERL researchers Yebin Wang, Stefano Di Cairano, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, Jianlin Guo, and Philip Orlik, and academic collaborators Xinping Guan and Chenyang Lu, was recognized as the Best New Application Paper of the IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering (T-ASE), for "a new industrial automation solution that ensures safety operation through coordinated co-design of edge model predictive control and local actuation".
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AWARD Arvind Raghunathan receives Roberto Tempo Best CDC Paper Award at 2022 IEEE Conference on Decision & Control (CDC) Date: December 8, 2022
Awarded to: Arvind Raghunathan
MERL Contact: Arvind Raghunathan
Research Areas: Control, OptimizationBrief- Arvind Raghunathan, Senior Principal Research Scientist in the Data Analytics group, received the IEEE Control Systems Society Roberto Tempo Best CDC Paper Award. The award was presented at the 2022 IEEE Conference on Decision & Control (CDC).
The award is given annually in honor of Roberto Tempo, the 44th President of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS). The Tempo Award Committee selects the best paper from the previous year's CDC based on originality, potential impact on any aspect of control theory, technology, or implementation, and for the clarity of writing. This year's award committee was headed by Prof. Patrizio Colaneri, Politecnico di Milano. Arvind's paper was nominated for the award by Prof. Lorenz Biegler, Carnegie Mellon University, with supporting letters from Prof. Andreas Waechter, Northwestern University, and Prof. Victor Zavala, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
- Arvind Raghunathan, Senior Principal Research Scientist in the Data Analytics group, received the IEEE Control Systems Society Roberto Tempo Best CDC Paper Award. The award was presented at the 2022 IEEE Conference on Decision & Control (CDC).
See All Awards for MERL -
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News & Events
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NEWS MERL contributes to IROS 2026 Date: September 27, 2026 - October 1, 2026
Where: The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)
MERL Contacts: Siddarth Jain; Toshiaki Koike-Akino; Jing Liu; Daniel N. Nikovski; Arvind Raghunathan; Alexander Schperberg; Kei Suzuki; Ye Wang
Research Areas: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Vision, Control, Machine Learning, Optimization, Robotics, Signal ProcessingBrief- MERL made broad contributions to the technical program and robotics community at the 2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2026), held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. MERL researchers presented one main-conference paper and five workshop papers, participated in an editorial board meeting, competed in the Humanoid IKEA Assembly Challenge, and contributed to the organization of an IROS workshop.
# Main Conference Paper
- ORIGAMI: Object Representation Inferred Geometrically for Articulated ManIpulation, Yunfu Deng and Daniel N. Nikovski (TR2026-141)
The work introduces a geometric representation for articulated-object manipulation, enabling robots to infer compact representations of previously unknown articulated mechanisms for downstream learning and control.
# Workshop Papers
- Deliberate Practice: Learning Robot Skills under a Budget Shivam Vats, Sudarshan Harithas, Mete Akbulut, Arvind Raghunathan, and George Konidaris (TR2026-147)
- ReCoVLA: VLM-Guided Reward Compilation for Failure Recovery in Vision-Language-Action Policies, Haodi Hu, Chung-Ta Huang, Jing Liu, Ye Wang, Kei Suzuki, Matthew Brand, and Toshiaki Koike-Akino (TR2026-148)
- Test-Time Attention: Can Robots Better Follow Commands? Jing Liu, Ye Wang, Kei Suzuki, and Toshiaki Koike-Akino (TR2026-142)
- Read the Manual: Grounding Behavior Tree Synthesis for Multi-Machine Factory Operation, Chak Lam Shek, Ye Wang, Jing Liu, Kei Suzuki, Pratap Tokekar, and Toshiaki Koike-Akino (TR2026-149)
- DYNAMIT: Dynamic Zero-Shot Manipulation via Instruction-Grounded Visual Tracking and Interception in Industrial Conveyor Environments, Harsh Singh, Kei Suzuki, Ye Wang, Jing Liu, Paola Cascante-Bonilla, and Toshiaki Koike-Akino (TR2026-146)
Together, these works address a range of challenges in modern robotics, including articulated-object manipulation, efficient robot skill learning, vision-language-action policies, test-time adaptation, autonomous factory operation, and dynamic manipulation. The paper on ReCoVLA was nominated as a spotlight talk.
# Robotics Community Contributions
MERL Principal Research Scientist Dr. Siddarth Jain participated in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RA-L) editorial board meeting at IROS. Dr. Jain serves as an Associate Editor of RA-L, contributing to the peer-review and editorial activities of the robotics research community.
Former MERL scientist Dr. Diego Romeres was also among the organizers of the 1st International Workshop on Industrial Applications of Robot Learning (IARL 2026). The workshop brought together researchers from academia and industry to discuss how advances in robot learning can be translated into reliable and scalable real-world industrial robotic systems.
# Humanoid IKEA Assembly Challenge
MERL also participated in the IROS 2026 Humanoid IKEA Assembly Challenge with Team MEL-Craft. The team achieved first place in the competition, demonstrating autonomous humanoid manipulation capabilities for a challenging furniture-assembly task. The MEL-Craft team included MERL researchers Kei Suzuki, Jing Liu, Alexander Schperberg, Toshiaki Koike-Akino, and Ye Wang, with contributions from MERL interns Haodi Hu, Harsh Singh, Chak Lam Shek, and Maxwell Asselmeier. The competition achievement is highlighted separately in MERL's related award announcement.
# About IROS
The IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) is a major international robotics conference bringing together researchers, engineers, and industry practitioners working across intelligent robots and systems. IROS 2026 took place in Pittsburgh from September 27 to October 1, 2026.
- MERL made broad contributions to the technical program and robotics community at the 2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2026), held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. MERL researchers presented one main-conference paper and five workshop papers, participated in an editorial board meeting, competed in the Humanoid IKEA Assembly Challenge, and contributed to the organization of an IROS workshop.
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NEWS MERL collaborator Yuri Shimane receives IFAC Young Author Applications Paper Prize Date: August 28, 2026
MERL Contacts: Stefano Di Cairano; Avishai Weiss
Research Areas: Control, Dynamical Systems, OptimizationBrief- MERL collaborator and former intern Prof. Yuri Shimane received the IFAC Young Author Applications Paper Prize at the 23rd IFAC World Congress 2026, held August 23–28 in Busan, South Korea for a paper co-authored with MERL researchers.
The award recognized Prof. Shimane paper, “Scenario-Based Model Predictive Control for Station Keeping on Near-Rectilinear Halo Orbit,” co-authored with Masafumi Isaji and MERL researchers Avishai Weiss and Stefano Di Cairano.
MERL congratulates Yuri and his co-authors on this recognition.
- MERL collaborator and former intern Prof. Yuri Shimane received the IFAC Young Author Applications Paper Prize at the 23rd IFAC World Congress 2026, held August 23–28 in Busan, South Korea for a paper co-authored with MERL researchers.
See All News & Events for Control -
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Internships
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OR0313: Internship - Foundation Models for Humanoid Robots
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MS0254: Internship - Decentralized Data Assimilation for Large Scale Systems
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CA0153: Internship - High-Fidelity Visualization and Simulation for Space Applications
See All Internships for Control -
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Openings
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SA0297: Postdoctoral Research Fellow - AI for Science
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MS0268: Research Scientist - Plasma Modeling and Control
See All Openings at MERL -
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Recent Publications
- , "Spatio-temporal monitoring using energy-constrained, sensing robots", IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, September 2026.BibTeX TR2026-144 PDF Video
- @article{Buyukkocak2026sep,
- author = {Buyukkocak, Ali and {Di Cairano}, Stefano and Vinod, Abraham P.},
- title = {{Spatio-temporal monitoring using energy-constrained, sensing robots}},
- journal = {IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering},
- year = 2026,
- month = sep,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-144}
- }
- , "Constrained Sampling MPC for Safe Contact-Rich Control: From Exploration to Precision via Hybrid Refinement⋆", IFAC World Congress, September 2026.BibTeX TR2026-119 PDF
- @inproceedings{Wang2026sep,
- author = {Wang, Chenghao and Romeres, Diego and Schperberg, Alexander and Li, Na and Wang, Yebin},
- title = {{Constrained Sampling MPC for Safe Contact-Rich Control: From Exploration to Precision via Hybrid Refinement⋆}},
- booktitle = {IFAC World Congress},
- year = 2026,
- month = sep,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-119}
- }
- , "Fast Adaptive Planning for Autonomous Tractor-Trailer Systems via Iterative LQR Steering", IEEE Conference on Automation and Science Engineering, August 2026.BibTeX TR2026-118 PDF
- @inproceedings{Zhou2026aug,
- author = {Zhou, Tianyu and Wang, Yebin and Umat, Akhil and Tiwari, Astha and {Di Cairano}, Stefano},
- title = {{Fast Adaptive Planning for Autonomous Tractor-Trailer Systems via Iterative LQR Steering}},
- booktitle = {IEEE Conference on Automation and Science Engineering},
- year = 2026,
- month = aug,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-118}
- }
- , "Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for High-Thrust Geostationary Station Keeping using Averaged Dynamics", World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), August 2026.BibTeX TR2026-117 PDF
- @inproceedings{Pavlasek2026aug,
- author = {Pavlasek, Natalia and Acikmese, Behcet and {Di Cairano}, Stefano and Weiss, Avishai},
- title = {{Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for High-Thrust Geostationary Station Keeping using Averaged Dynamics}},
- booktitle = {World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = aug,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-117}
- }
- , "MOBIUS: A Multi-Modal Bipedal Robot that can Walk, Crawl, Climb, and Roll", Robotics Science and Systems, July 2026.BibTeX TR2026-110 PDF Video
- @inproceedings{Schperberg2026jul,
- author = {Schperberg, Alexander and Tanaka, Yusuke and {Di Cairano}, Stefano and Hong, Dennis},
- title = {{MOBIUS: A Multi-Modal Bipedal Robot that can Walk, Crawl, Climb, and Roll}},
- booktitle = {Robotics Science and Systems},
- year = 2026,
- month = jul,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-110}
- }
- , "MIRROR: Multisensory Implicit Rejection-sampled RObotic policy", ICML 2026 Workshop on Structured Probabilistic Inference & Generative Modeling, July 2026.BibTeX TR2026-096 PDF
- @inproceedings{Bhaskar2026jul,
- author = {Bhaskar, Amisha and Tokekar, Pratap and {Di Cairano}, Stefano and Schperberg, Alexander},
- title = {{MIRROR: Multisensory Implicit Rejection-sampled RObotic policy}},
- booktitle = {ICML 2026 Workshop on Structured Probabilistic Inference \& Generative Modeling},
- year = 2026,
- month = jul,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-096}
- }
- , "Coordinated aerial inspection of infrastructure with heterogeneous drones", World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), July 2026.BibTeX TR2026-101 PDF Software
- @inproceedings{Folorunsho2026jul,
- author = {Folorunsho, Samuel and Hayner, Christopher and {Di Cairano}, Stefano and Vinod, Abraham P.},
- title = {{Coordinated aerial inspection of infrastructure with heterogeneous drones}},
- booktitle = {World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC)},
- year = 2026,
- month = jul,
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-101}
- }
- , "Closed-Loop Co-Design of Motors, Motions, and Feedback Control for Robotic Manipulators", Journal of Artificial Intelligence for Automation, DOI: 10.53941/jaia.2026.100008, Vol. 1, No. 2, June 2026.BibTeX TR2026-088 PDF
- @article{Lin2026jun2,
- author = {Lin, Jue-Te and Lu, Zehui and Wang, Yebin},
- title = {{Closed-Loop Co-Design of Motors, Motions, and Feedback Control for Robotic Manipulators}},
- journal = {Journal of Artificial Intelligence for Automation},
- year = 2026,
- volume = 1,
- number = 2,
- month = jun,
- doi = {10.53941/jaia.2026.100008},
- url = {https://www.merl.com/publications/TR2026-088}
- }
- , "Spatio-temporal monitoring using energy-constrained, sensing robots", IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering, September 2026.
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Videos
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