Coffee and Control

In this episode I got to chat with the incredibly wonderful Dr Keyan Miao about the fascinating work she’s done on neural ODEs. We discuss applying control theoretic tools to optimise neural ODEs, as well as their use for both controller and observer design. And in case that wasn’t already enough we also touch on dissipativity, Koopman operators, and reinforcement learning!
 
You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iI0swQSnNEqgGQgf7og8udRV3IBCXbbfEkLFlolGxEU/edit?usp=sharing
Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/
Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/
 
Join the live recording on 20th October 2026!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2S9X66_Wfzc
( 9:30 PDT, 12:30 ET, 16:30 UTC, 17:30 BST, 18:30 CEST)

References
Keyan Miao: https://kymiao.github.io/
Richard Vinter: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/r.vinter
 QianXiao Li from NUS and Wei-Nan Er from Princeton: https://www.jmlr.org/papers/volume18/17-653/17-653.pdf
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40687-018-0172-y
https://ems.press/journals/jems/articles/5404458
 
Book on control theory/ philosophy: https://apac.ee.kntu.ac.ir/publications/books/control-systems-a-historical-and-philosophical-perspective/
Control theory/ philosophy article: https://www.numberanalytics.com/blog/control-theory-philosophical-lens-language
NCCR automation fellowship: https://nccr-automation.ch/research-fellowship
Andreas Krause: https://las.inf.ethz.ch/krausea
 
Steve Brunton ResNet video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1UsKanMatM&t=911s
Original neural ODE paper: https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2018/file/69386f6bb1dfed68692a24c8686939b9-Paper.pdf
Speeding up Neural ODE training and inference: https://proceedings.mlr.press/v235/miao24a.html
 
Neural ODE review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2950550X25000263
Review of Neural ODEs in biomedical engineering: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-bioeng-110824-124907
 
Neural ODEs for observer design paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.00866
Non-linear observer review: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1367578821000948
 
Neural ODEs for control design papers: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.17139
Survey on CBFs: https://coogan.ece.gatech.edu/papers/pdf/amesecc19.pdf
 
Koopman operator paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.07294
Combining neural ODEs with RL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0925231225007131
 
Neural ODE dissipativity paper: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005109826003043
 
Papers on Neural Network Verification: HuanZhang (UIUC)
https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2018/file/d04863f100d59b3eb688a11f95b0ae60-Paper.pdf
https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2021/file/fac7fead96dafceaf80c1daffeae82a4-Paper.pdf
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.26577
 
Papers on Direct NN parameterization: Ian Manchester (USyd)and Patricia Pauli (Eindhoven)
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9319198
https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22258
https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/wang23v.html
https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9867842
 
Ricky Chen: https://rtqichen.github.io/
Flow matching paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.02747
Antonis Papachristoudolou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulou
Carmen Amo Alonso episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/393QBgVgsQwgh4wKj1bcLy

In this episode I take you with me to the 2026 IFAC World Congress in Busan, South Korea, where I got to talk to a bunch of wonderful control researchers about their work. We cover a wide range of fascinating research areas, including observer design for transportation, event-triggered control, consensus control, extremum-seeking, robotic manipulation, control education and outreach, and a whole lot more!
 
You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XE4krcWk6KgQjUUtgxKejmsTBYTermPeL9e3uVOnRJQ/edit?usp=sharing
 
Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/
Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/
References
Workshops
Arun Tangirala: https://arunkt-dev.github.io/
Prem Jagadeesan: https://www.amrita.edu/faculty/prem-jagadeesan/
Paper on defining sloppiness: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0282609
Tom Oomen: https://toomen.eu/
Monday
inControl podcast: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/
Live event recording: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/19954769-ep49-incontrol-ifac-2026-m-vidyasagar-h-khalil-s-boyd-so-you-want-to-write-a-classic
Selsabil Bougherara:  https://www.uphf.fr/lamih/membres/bougherara_selsabil
Shengya Meng: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shengya-meng-1b299a294/
Laura Albert: https://engineering.wisc.edu/directory/profile/laura-albert/
Tuesday
Ying Tan: https://findanexpert.unimelb.edu.au/profile/28203-ying-tan
Miroslav Krstic inControl interview: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/16954129-ep31-miroslav-krstic-nonlinear-adaptive-control-pdes-delays-extremum-seeking-safety-neural-operators-for-control
ESC paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4177053
 
Wednesday
Frank Park: https://me.snu.ac.kr/en/snu__professor/park-frank-chongwoo/
Talk on geometric methods for robot learning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIKZzlomGIY
Pritesh Patel: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/667tf7/doctor-pritesh-patel
Paper on stability of adaptive control of switched systems: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1751570X25000457
 
Interview with Brian Douglas: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHal
Nikwist: https://www.nikwist.be/
David Tinoco: https://dtinas10.github.io/homepage/
Quantum control podcast episodes: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5t577mI6iCh6ypd40nMxBQ
https://open.spotify.com/episode/31XLcllhy4XK7gQ9NnDGfz
Olaf Stursberg:  https://www.uni-kassel.de/eecs/en/sections/control-and-system-theory/team/prof-stursberg.html
Sudhanshu Shekhar: https://www.iitk.ac.in/sudhanshu-shekhar
Sonia Martinez: http://muro.ucsd.edu/sonia/
Overview of coverage control: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.13890
Paper on optimal transport: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8619816
 
ThursdayArkadeep Saha: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkadeep-saha-1b1a84252/
Steve Brunton SINDy videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSCa78TIldg
Open source soft robotic platform: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5609765
https://github.com/ReshapeTUe/Soft-Legged-Wheel-Testbed

Nicolás Faedo: https://www.polito.it/en/staff?p=nicolas.faedo
Emilia Fushimi: http://www.gca.ing.unlp.edu.ar/?q=fushimi

Tore Gude: https://www.ntnu.no/ansatte/tore.gude
Friday
Dan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobson/profileview/edit/
Cristina Stoica: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/en/u/stoica-cristina/
IFAC youTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ifacyoutube3132
OosCar non-linear control video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaOk003CiqA
Art and control: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awx-LOdbNH8
Rebecca Thien: https://l2s.centralesupelec.fr/en/u/thien-rebbecca-tze-yean/Kuberknots podcast: https://kuberknots.com/
 
IET travel support: https://www.theiet.org/impact-society/awards-prizes-and-scholarships/travel-awards

In this episode I had the pleasure of talking to the fantastic Francesca Boem about her work on monitoring networked systems, approaches to detecting faults and cyber attacks, as well as her new start-up helping to ensure the security of wireless health-tech devices!
 
You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ttf7raapfDW4_aj3mnD8mSoy704d9T9BLnJk9QXbLqM/edit?usp=sharing
 
Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/
Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/
Drop me an email if you’re attending IFAC WC: L.Hodgins@soton.ac.uk
 
 
References
Francesca Boem: https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/65682-francesca-boem
PhD thesis: https://www.openstarts.units.it/entities/publication/c9e28dd2-a9f3-4deb-bfb9-886a8f5d1661/details
Thomas Parisini: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/t.parisini
Distributed fault detection paper: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6580380
 
Detectability of cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8264562
Cyber attack detection for microgrids: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9054955
Detecting covert cyber attacks: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9104026
Detecting replay attacks: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1805.00737
Fault-tolerant control/ active fault diagnosis: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8700304
 
CONTROL 2026 episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2MTAxQo4PlTC0zo7OcYRB4
 
BLE vulnerabilities paper: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212293/1/ISCAS_2025_V4.pdf
 
 
 GiancarloFerrari Tricate: https://people.epfl.ch/giancarlo.ferraritrecate
KIOS centre: https://www.kios.ucy.ac.cy/

In this episode I have the pleasure of attending the CONTROL2026 conference, and bring you along with me! This conference was the largest gatheringof control engineers in the UK recent years, co-organized by the ACE network and UK Automatic Control Council (UKACC). Join me as I explore the ACE network and some of the fabulous control engineering research taking place across theUK!
Join the ACE network!: ⁠https://ukcontrol.org/join-ace
 
You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1131VDAX37W9GOJ87c0PZqXt83VMds1rAdapr1HdgN3Q/edit?usp=sharing
 
Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/
Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/
 
References
Control 2026: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/
Conference proceedings: https://control2026.ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Control-2026-Proceedings-Booklet.pdf
ACE network: https://ukcontrol.org/
UKACC: https://ukacc.sites.sheffield.ac.uk/
IFAC: https://www.ifac-control.org/
Pramod Khargonekar: https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/khargonekar/
Slides from his talk: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/yaf5rk
Norbert Weiner: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Norbert-Wiener
Automony vs automation: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00146-020-01004-z
InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/11513053-ep6-norbert-wiener-and-cybernetics
Macy Conference proceedings: http://cybernetic-bookshelf.org:8083/book/2636Dartmouth conference: https://opendigitalai.org/en/the-dartmouth-conference-1956-the-big-bang-of-ai/
John McCarthy: https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-McCarthy
Daniel Coca: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/engineering/staff/profile/danielcoca.html
EPSRC: https://www.ukri.org/councils/epsrc/
Interview with Andy Lawrence: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6BvPXw3YyoqdsvbQ573OF1
William Heath: https://www.bangor.ac.uk/staff/scse/william-heath-680178/en
Alessandro Astolfi: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/a.astolfi
Antonis Papachristodoulou: https://eng.ox.ac.uk/people/antonis-papachristodoulou
Stephen Duncan: https://www.st-hughs.ox.ac.uk/people/professor-stephen-duncan/
Francesca Boem: https://profiles.imperial.ac.uk/f.boem
EDI survey: https://coffeecontrollinks.short.gy/ahijky
Mentorship scheme sign-up form: https://ukcontrol.org/ace-network-mentor-scheme
ACE position paper: https://ukcontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/ACE-Position-Paper.pdf
Network + survey: https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=yRJQnBa2wkSpF2aBT74-hyrBNzE3vqFAgmzn8RVGrRVUM1pNMEZFREExUTBJQ1dRUkJTNFRGNEJPVi4u&route=shorturl
 

Claude shutdown: https://www.ithinkdiff.com/claude-fable-5-disabled-us-government/
Brian Douglas podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0yUF9sf0cM2K9AeoQzoHal
 
Chao Gu: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chao-gu-609073220/
Petri nets: http://www.petri-net.de/
AEGEAN: https://en.about.aegeanair.com/company/fleet/
Liam Hallinan: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LmZyKIIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Salma Iraky: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salmassabry/
TERRA github: https://github.com/sssabry/tera
Anton Selivanov: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Anton-Selivanov
Allan Nascimento (Multi-horizon MPC author): https://ieeexplore-ieee-org.soton.idm.oclc.org/author/867072138905292
 
Miroslav Krstic: https://flyingv.ucsd.edu/
Neural operators: https://arxiv.org/abs/2108.08481
Mohammad Adballah: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/schools/meme/staff/phd/mohammad-abdallah/
 
Luke Rickard: https://www.lukerickard.co.uk/
Will Rohde: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wfmrohde/
Dan Hobson: https://www.southampton.ac.uk/people/5xp9hs/mr-daniel-hobson
Anthony Rossiter: https://ieeecss.org/contact/anthony-rossiter
Control101 toolbox: https://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/130439-control-101-toolbox

In the second part of my interview with the incredibly talented Carmen Amo Alonso we discuss her fascinating work at the intersection of AI and control, examining topics such as:
Using tools from control theory to analyse and design AI systems
Controlling large language models to guarantee a particular sentiment for their output
Using vision-language-action models to control robots using language
and a whole lot more!
 
You can find the transcript for this episode at: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ph1yaQuV_ybRM8h9rU5Uvmz9eB5Ar4HVhcBnc7b7zJ8/edit?usp=sharing
Follow the podcast on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/coffee-and-control-podcast/
Or connect with me directly: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lucy-hodgins-733a30175/
 
References
The architecture of language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApC0AWWTajU
Diffusion models: https://the-principles-of-diffusion-models.github.io/
Skip connection paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.10609
Review of state-space models in AI: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.16899
3 Blue 1 Brown video on transformers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjZofJX0v4M
Dynamical systems framework paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15731
Designing sequence models: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.09389v1
Controlling LLM output: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.15454v3
Controllability of LLMs: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.05637v1
 
Vision-language-action model paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.05487v1
NARRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.10762
DEMONSTRATE: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.12855v1
Domitilla Del Vecchio: https://meche.mit.edu/people/faculty/ddv@MIT.EDU
Biomolecular feedback systems book: https://www.fbswiki.org/wiki/index.php/Biomolecular_Feedback_Systems
Mathias Foo episode: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1G3vhRoeenTWRrEwauT0ne
inControl episodes: Mario di Bernardo: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/19167890-ep44-mario-di-bernardo-from-circuits-to-cells-and-swarms-control-meets-complexity
Mustafa Khammash: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12648716-ep11-mustafa-khammash-cybergenetics
John Doyle: https://ieeecss.org/contact/john-doyle
InControl episode: https://www.incontrolpodcast.com/1632769/episodes/12841020-ep12-john-doyle-part-i-a-pioneer-s-guide-to-robust-control-the-past-present-and-future
Jerome Sieber: https://jerome.sieber.io/