Paula Chanfreut Palacio

Paula Chanfreut Palacio is an Assistant Professor in the Control Systems Technology section of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). She joined TU/e in February 2023 after previously contributing to the ERC Advanced Grant project OCONTSOLAR (Optimal Control of Thermal Solar Energy Systems).

Education:

• B.Sc. and M.Sc. in Industrial Engineering (University of Seville, 2017/2019)
• Ph.D. in Automation Engineering (University of Seville, 2018–2022)
• Visiting scholar at UC Berkeley (2021) and MIT (2022)

Research Interests: Her work centers on decentralized and data-driven model predictive control (MPC) for large-scale interconnected systems. Key applications include renewable energy plants, traffic networks, and smart grids, with emphasis on scalability, cooperative multi-agent frameworks, and real-time optimization. She also investigates cyber-security in control systems and learning-based supervisory methods.

Publications: Recent articles (2025) focus on advanced MPC techniques for safety-critical systems like vehicle platooning and power grids, highlighting themes such as cyber-attack resilience, nonlinear cooperative control, and invariant set design. Cross-cutting topics include distributed optimization, robustness, and machine learning integration.

Projects: Active member of the Model Predictive Pandemic Control project (2023–2025), funded by an ERC Advanced Grant, focusing on control strategies for large-scale health crises.

Affiliation: Part of the Cyber-Physical Systems and Systems Engineering research group at TU/e, contributing to interdisciplinary work in control theory and real-world engineering solutions.