Welcome to SIDRA 2025

The S.I.D.R.A. PhD Summer School is a one-week event organised every year by S.I.D.R.A., the Italian Control Systems Society. The Summer School usually takes place in Bertinoro, Forlì-Cesena, Italy. Our current plan is to organise the School in person, in Bertinoro, respecting all the rules to cope with the pandemic, but if the situation will not allow it, the School will be held online.

Since the first edition, in 1997, the school has been a meeting place for PhD students, post-graduate and researchers, to be introduced to classical as well as to emerging control theory, enriched by practical case studies and applications. Besides the learning experience, the school also has the ambition of providing a stimulating environment for PhD students to meet and establish professional relationships, collaborations, and know-how exchanges. Every year, two hot topics related to control systems theory/applications are presented, and the participants to the school have the opportunity to suggest the topics for the next year. The summer school is primarily intended for, but not restricted to, PhD, post-graduate, and researcher candidates in the Control Systems and Automatica fields. Participants coming from other disciplines may also benefit from the school depending on the topics discussed. The school success encountered in these years and the distinguished international guests, involved a progressive internationalization of the school that now opens up to receive applications from all the European PhD students.

Subjects of this year

This year the school comprises an intensive programme of lectures and seminars organised around two research themes.

The first one, developed in the first half of the week, is “An Introduction to Stochastic Control and Reinforcement Learning.”, coordinated and taught by professors Subhrakanti Dey, Dept of Electrical Engineering, Uppsala University and Simone Garatti, Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, Politecnico di Milano.

The second argument is " Control methods for distributed optimization ", by professors Ruggero Carli, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Università di Padova, and Ivano Notarnicola, Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell'Energia Elettrica e dell'Informazione "Guglielmo Marconi", Universita’ di Bologna.

The course “An Introduction to Stochastic Control and Reinforcement Learning” will start with the basics of stochastic control theory and dynamic programming techniques for model-based Markov decision processes (MDP). It will then introduce the basics of reinforcement learning for MDPs with unknown models. Starting with traditional reinforcement learning techniques such as Q-learning and Temporal Difference (TD) methods, the course will end with a glimpse of more advanced techniques based on data-driven value function approximations, policy gradient techniques and actor-critic methods, illustrated with representative application examples. Click here for more info on the course programme.

The course " Control methods for distributed optimization " explores the connections between control and optimization methodologies, focusing on the analysis of optimization algorithms as feedback interconnected dynamical systems. It covers both basic and advanced topics in these disciplines, enabling students to understand the deep connections between the two areas. Click here for more info on the course programme.

A brief guide to surf the site

• Click on the main menu item More Info to have information about how the telematic lectures will be held and instructions on how to follow them,
• Click on the main menu item Registration to have information and instructions on how to apply to the school and the requested fee. Here you can find the pre-registration form to be filled to be admitted to the SIDRA summer school
• Click on the main menu item Teaching Material to download the material of the school and the homeworks. The material will be provided few weeks before the first school day whereas the homework will be available at the end of the school (for taking a certified exam if required by the home university).
• Use the links on the bottom of the page to communicate directly with the Centro Universitario di Bertinoro, that manage the centre where the school take place (only for questions not answered on this site).
• On the bottom of the page the email addresses of the coordinators of the school, Prof. Claudio Melchiorri and Prof. Maria Elena Valcher, and of the contact person at the Centro Universitario di Bertinoro, Ms. Monica Michelacci.

Please, contact Ms. Jessica Bazzoli for questions related to accommodation and logistics, Prof. Claudio Melchiorri or Prof. Maria Elena Valcher for questions related to the School and the courses.