pH school

The port-Hamiltonian system (pHS) framework is a relatively new framework for complex interconnected physical systems  that can address control and estimation in challenging situations, such as vibrating structures and gas flow in pipes. One advantage of the this approach to modelling is that energy within sub-systems and power flow between systems is explicitly modelled. This facilitates obtaining models of complex interconnected system where the final model preserves physical principles. A strength of pHS is that they are passive and this can be used in controller/estimator synthesis to obtain good performance despite imperfect models. For systems which depend on spatial variables as well as time, the models include  partial differential equations. A numerical approximation is typically used for simulation, as well as for controller and estimator design. Obtaining a structure-preserving discretization is an important step in ensuring that the approximation preserves energy-related properties. 

This mini-course will proceed through the basics of modelling with port-Hamiltonian systems and includes an introduction to its utility in controller and estimator design as well as structured discretization. 

The school will be held on the campus of the University of Waterloo, August 14-15 just before MTNS 2026 which is hosted by the University of Waterlo

David del Rey Fernandez (Waterloo, Canada),

Hannes Gernandt (Wuppertal, Germany),

Birgit Jacob (Wuppertal, Germany),

Yann Le Gorrec (Besançon, France),

Alessandro Macchelli (Bologna, Italy),

Hector Ramírez (Valparaíso, Chile) 

The attendance fee is $50 with MTNS2026 registration. Registration form will be available soon.

Birgit Jacob (University of  Wuppertal, Germany) and Kirsten Morris (University of Waterloo, Canada)

For more information, contact Kirsten Morris

Sponsored by NSERC (Canada), the University of Waterloo and  CRC 1701 (Germany)