Prizes, Awards & Support

The following page about prizes, support and awards is preliminary. Some minor modifications may occur.

IFAC Application Paper Prize

The prize is given for outstanding technical contributions at an IFAC Congress in the area of control applications. This includes, but is not limited to, case studies, design and implementation of control systems and optimization of operations in a process. The prize and a certificate are awarded at the closing ceremony of the IFAC World Congress.

Nominations may arise either

• from authors (all papers submitted in the Application category will be considered, see the second step of the submission procedure),
• or from reviewers (nominations via a checkbox in the review form in the IFAC PaperCept conference manuscript management system).

A preliminary selection process is performed by the relevant Technical Committees. By the time of the approval of the final Program of the Congress, each Technical Committee Chair submits to the Chair of the IFAC Application Paper Prize Selection Committee the set of papers which are considered suitable for this Prize. The Selection Committee determines a short list of finalists, and notifies the respective corresponding authors. The winner is determined at the time of the Congress, based on the written paper and the oral presentation.

Application Paper Prize Selection Committee:
Alexander Kurzhanski (Chair), Abu Sebastian, Trygve Thomessen, Georg Weichhart, Wei Ren, Carlos Eduardo Pereira

Finalists:

• “Optimal Control of Perturbed Static Systems for Synchrotron Electron Beam Stabilisation” by Gayadeen, Sandira; Duncan, Stephen; Rehm, Guenther
• “Data-driven Model Predictive Control for Lean NOx Trap Regeneration” by Karimshoushtari, Milad; Novara, Carlo
• “Bezier Curve Based Trajectory Generation and Nonlinear Friction Compensation for Feed Drive Contouring Control” by Simba, Kenneth Renny; Heppeler, Gunter; Bui, Ba; Hendrawan, Yogi Muldani; Uchiyama, Naoki
• “Stochastic Modeling of Lane Changes for Predictive Adaptive Cruise Control” by Moser, Dominik; Reiter, Matthias; del Re, Luigi - Prize Winner
• “Predictive Guidance Control for Autonomous Kites with Input Delay” by Wood, Tony A.; Ahbe, Eva; Hesse, Henrik; Smith, Roy S.

IFAC Young Author Prize

The prize is for the best paper at an IFAC World Congress of an author younger than 30 years by 1 July 2017. The author should be the first and corresponding author of the paper. The author should also present the results during the World Congress. The prize and a certificate are awarded at the closing ceremony of the IFAC World Congress.

Nominations may arise from colleagues of the young author (no self-nominations) and should include a nomination letter. The nomination letter has to contain a clear statement indicating that the nominee is younger than 30 years by 1 July 2017. Nominations are done using the IFAC PaperCept conference manuscript management system. The nomination phase will start on 8 December 2016 and close on 8 March 2017. The IFAC Young Author Prize Selection Committee determines based on the gathered reviews and on their own reading of the paper a short list of finalists, and notifies authors. The winner is determined at the time of the Congress, based on both the written paper and the oral presentation that should be given by the nominee.

Young Author Prize Selection Committee:
Michel Kinnaert (Chair), Raymond de Callafon, Lorenzo Marconi, Katalin Hangos, Jaime Alberto Moreno Pérez, Hideaki Ishii, Håkan Hjalmarsson, Maria Seron

Finalists:

• Shen Zeng  for the paper « Periodic Signal Compressors » by Shen Zeng, Jan Maximilian Montenbruck, Frank Allgöwer
• G. Rallo for the paper « Real-time Pedaling Rate Estimation via Wheel Speed Filtering » by Gianmarco Rallo, Simone Formentin, Matteo Corno, Sergio M. Savaresi
• Luca Deori (Prize Winner) for the paper « On the Connection between Nash Equilibria and Social Optima in Electric Vehicle Charging Control Games » by Luca Deori, Kostas Margellos, Maria Prandini
• Raik Suttner (Prize Winner) for the paper « Exponential Stability for Extremum Seeking Control Systems » by Raik Suttner, Sergey Dashkovskiy
• Anastasios Tsiamis for the paper « State Estimation with Secrecy against Eavesdroppers » by Anastasios Tsiamis, Konstantinos Gatsis, George J. Pappas
• Joel Paulson for the paper « Arbitrary Polynomial Chaos for Uncertainty Propagation of Correlated Random Variables in Dynamic Systems » by Joel A. Paulson, Edward A. Buehler, Ali Mesbah

IFAC Interactive Paper Prize

The prize is for the best paper accepted and presented at the IFAC World Congress in an interactive session. At the 2017 IFAC World Congress in Toulouse the presentations will have two formats: lecture/oral sessions and interactive sessions. No value ranking is implied by the presentation format and all the papers undergo the same review process. It is at the discretion of the International Program Committee to choose which papers are presented in either oral or interactive sessions. The interactive presentation will take place during 2 hours session slots. A space will be allocated to each speaker with a TV screen to be connected to a laptop (laptops are not provided by the organization). The presenters will be encouraged to emphasize their contributions by means of videos, simulations, demonstrations of software tools, or in classical slideshow format.

The Chair of the IFAC Interactive Paper Prize will be responsible for nominating papers for the prize based on the reviews collected for the papers to be presented in interactive sessions. The Selection Committee determines a short list of finalists, and notifies the respective corresponding authors. The winner is determined at the time of the Congress, based on the written paper and the interactive presentation.

Interactive Paper Prize Selection Committee:
Michael Sebek (Chair), Bassam Bamieh, Miro Fikar, Vladimír Havlena, Martin Kozek, Jan Lunze, Kenji Sugimoto, Draguna Vrabie

Finalists:

• “Switch Observability for Homogeneous Switched DAEs“ by Ferdinand Kuste, Stephan Tren, Andreas Wirsn
• “Real-Time Pedaling Rate Estimation Via Wheel Speed Filtering” by Gianmarco Rallo, Simone Formentin, Matteo Corno, Sergio M. Savaresi
• “Robust adaptive feedforward output-feedback tracking control for microalgae cultures” by A. Schaum, H. Weisbarth, T. Meurer - Prize Winner
• “VSC-HVDC System Robust Stability Analysis Based on a Modified Mixed Small Gain and Passivity Theorem” by Y. Song, C. Breitholtz
• “Parameter Varying Flutter Suppression Control for the BAH Jet Transport Wing“  by B. Patartics, T. Luspay, T. Peni, B. Takarics, B. Vanek , T. Kier   
• “Virtual Bidding: Equilibrium, Learning, and the Wisdom of Crowds” by Jonathan Mather, Eilyan Bitar, Kameshwar Poolla            

EEA Demonstrator Paper Prize

This prize is an IFAC'2017 special. It is for the best paper accepted and presented at the IFAC World Congress in the Demonstrator Exhibition sessions.

The Demonstrator Paper Prize Selection Committee will determine the winner at the time of the Congress, based on both the written paper and the presentation at the demonstrator exhibition.

This special demonstrator prize is funded by Club EEA (French association of professors and researchers in electrical and information sciences) which sponsors the Workshop on Automatic Control Demonstrators, known as "Journées Démonstrateurs", held every four years in Angers, France.

Demonstrator Paper Prize Selection Committee:
Francis Lepage (Chair), Laurent Autrique, Isabelle Fantoni, Marion Gilson-Bagrel, Laurent Houssin, Maciej Patan, Laetitia Perez

Winner:
"Time-Optimal Control for Bilinear Nonnegative-In-Control Systems: Application to Magnetic Manipulation", by Jiri Zemanek, Sergej Celikovsky, Zdenek Hurak

IFAC Foundation Award

Purpose, Funding, and Presentation of the Award

One of the aims of the IFAC Foundation is to promote the awareness and dissemination of the social relevance of automatic control. Beginning with the Congress year 2017, the IFAC Foundation will recognize, with an award, contributions from individuals or group of individuals who, with their work, have shown how Automatic Control science and technology can contribute to decisive advances in the broad area of “sustainable development”. This includes work in the areas of renewable and clean energy; management of energy, water and resources in general; control in agriculture, pollution control, climate control and similar.

The award will be given to high-quality papers submitted and accepted for presentation at the triennial IFAC World Congress. The award is fully funded by the IFAC Foundation.

The winner (or winning team) will receive a medal, a certificate and a monetary prize, at the time of the IFAC World Congress.

Nomination Procedure

Nominations of high-quality papers are solicited for the IFAC Foundation award. Nominations should be prepared according to the format described below and in the nomination form. Nominators should produce a convincing documentation that explicitly describes the benefits and impacts of the proposed contribution. Nominations may also include reference letters.  If authors choose to self-nominate, they are limited to one such self-nomination.

Nominations should be sent to the Chair of the board of trustees of the IFAC Foundation. All papers, nominated for the IFAC Foundation award, that have been accepted through the normal Congress review process are considered as candidates for the award.

Selection Criteria

The criteria are the highest technical quality and prospective evidence that the contribution described in the paper would have a great impact in the fields outlined above. Such criteria include not only the impact and benefits to Society of the work done, as presented at the Congress, but also the paper's technical soundness and research content quality based on the IPC evaluation.

Selection Procedure

The IFAC Foundation Board of Trustees will appoint a Selection Committee. This committee will examine all nominated papers that have been accepted for presentation to the IFAC World Congress and select a winner. The Selection Committee will report to the IFAC Foundation Board of Trustees, proposing a winner and an alternate. Based on the report of the Selection Committee, the IFAC Foundation Board of Trustees may choose a winner or may choose not to give the award. The winner will be notified in due time, jointly by the Chair of the IFAC Foundation Board of Trustees and by the IFAC President.

Format of the Nomination

Nomination forms can be downloaded from the IFAC Foundation website. A nomination, consisting of the completed nomination form with its supporting documents, should be sent, by e-mail, to the IFAC Foundation (foundationaward@ifac-control.org) as one single file (in .pdf format).

Young Author Support

The IFAC Foundation offers a support for young authors from developing countries to attend the 2017 IFAC World Congress in the framework of its Young Author's Support Program.

Eligible for support are authors of accepted technical papers – citizens of a developing country not supported by any institution in a high income country – whose age will be less than 30 years during the conference. Only one author per paper can be supported. A limited number of applications will be supported. A developing country is understood to be one which is not on the list of high income countries. The support consists of a lump sum to help defray the cost of registration, accommodation and travel expenses related to the Congress. Presentation of a paper at the conference by each supported author is a requisite.  Follow this link for more information and application form.

Journal Awards

• Automatica Paper Prize
• Control Engineering Practice Paper Prize
• Journal of Process Control Paper Prize
• Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence Paper Prize
• Mechatronics Paper Prize
• Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems Paper Prize

The IFAC Journal Awards are given for outstanding papers published in the above IFAC journals. At the closing ceremony of each Triennial IFAC World Congress monetary prizes are presented to the authors of papers selected by the Journal Prize Awards Selection Committees. The prize funds are provided by the publisher of the IFAC Journals, Elsevier Ltd.

Major Awards

• The Giorgio Quazza medal recognizes outstanding lifetime contributions of a researcher and/or engineer to conceptual foundations in the field of systems and control.
• The Nathaniel B. Nichols medal recognizes outstanding contributions of an individual to design methods, software tools and instrumentation, or to significant projects resulting in major applications and advancement of control education.
• The Manfred Thoma medal recognizes outstanding contributions of a young researcher and/or engineer under the age of 40 to the field of systems and control in its widest sense.
• The Industrial Achievement award is given to an individual, or a team of individuals, who has made a significant contribution to industrial applications of control. The award is given in technical fields covered by IFAC. The selection is based on industrial achievements measured in terms of: Inventions in the control area, Engineering significance of products and projects, Industrial leadership, Promotion of control technology in industry, Impact of patents, International recognition.
• The High Impact paper award acknowledges the impact of a paper published in any of the official IFAC journals on the broad areas of Automatic Control theory and application.

The above five IFAC Major Awards are presented at the opening ceremony of the World Congress.

Harold Chestnut Control Engineering Textbook Prize

This Textbook award is presented at each triennial Congress for the best Control Engineering textbook for which the first edition(s) occurred not later than the Congress just prior to the one at which the award is presented. It recognizes the author(s) of the textbook(s) judged to have most contributed to the education of control engineers. More about Textbook Prize on the IFAC web site.

IFAC Fellows

The IFAC Fellow Award is given to persons who have made outstanding and extraordinary contributions in the field of interest of IFAC, in the role as an Engineer/Scientist, Technical Leader, or Educator. IFAC Fellows for the 2014-2017 triennium will be awarded at the IFAC President's dinner held prior to the IFAC World Congress.

Outstanding Service Award

This award is presented to IFAC officials who have served and contributed substantially to IFAC in various capacities, according to a criterion set by the Council. The awards are presented during the IFAC President's dinner held prior to the IFAC World Congress. More about the award on the IFAC web site.