Marcel Heertjes

Marcel Heertjes is a Full Professor (Part-time) in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). His primary professional affiliation is with ASML where he serves as principal engineer and control competence leader. He is affiliated with multiple research groups including Control Systems Technology, Dynamics and Control, and Group Van de Wouw.

Professor Heertjes specializes in industrial control for high-precision mechatronic systems with particular emphasis on nonlinear control, feedforward and learning control, and data-driven optimization and self-tuning. His research aims to break free from linear control design limitations through robust nonlinear control design and stability analysis. The high-precision motion industry, particularly wafer scanning technology, is largely constrained by linear control design which imposes limitations on bandwidths, overshoot, and settling times. His work provides extra design freedom to overcome these limitations and enable future control system performances needed for advanced high-precision mechatronics.

His recent publications demonstrate significant advancements in nonlinear integrators, projection-based integrators, spatio-temporal modeling, and model-free control techniques for precision motion systems. These contributions directly address challenges in wafer scanners and other high-precision manufacturing equipment, showing how nonlinear approaches can surpass traditional linear control limitations.

He has served as guest editor of the International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control (2011) and IFAC Mechatronics (2014), and currently serves as associate editor of IFAC Mechatronics (since 2016).

Marcel Heertjes received both his MSc and PhD in mechanical engineering from Eindhoven University of Technology in 1995 and 1999. After joining Philips Centre for Industrial Technology in 2000, he moved to ASML in 2007 where he continues to work while maintaining his academic appointment at TU/e.