The Control Systems Group at the Electrical Engineering Department in 
Eindhoven University of Technology has an opening for a Post-Doc 
position in the project ‘Improved Process Operation via Rigorous 
Simulation Models’(IMPROVISE)


Project description:


The IMPROVISE is a research project funded by the Institute of 
Sustainable Process Technology (ISPT, http://ispt.eu) involving one 
academic partner (Eindhoven University of Technology and three 
industrial partners DSM (www.dsm.com) , FrieslandCampina 
(www.frieslandcampina.com)) and CORBION (www.corbion.com). The overall 
aim of this research project is to integrate rigorous modeling into the 
daily operations of chemical processes and make a step further in 
closing the gap between offline and online use of rigorous models in 
advanced process control applications.


The research project is going to focus on 

1.	Alignment of rigorous models with actual process behavior with a 
predefined level of accuracy. The aim is to develop techniques for 
online calibration of models to actual process behaviour. The relevant 
research areas include the optimal sensor location and selection of 
measurement, identifiability of processes and parameter estimation
2.	Optimal design, dynamic operation and decision making for 
processes under uncertainty. In this part, the goal is to take into 
account the uncertainty of rigorous simulation models in process design 
and dynamic operation. The incorporation of uncertainty in rigorous 
models, formulation of optimization problem accordingly and model 
approximation techniques to decrease computational load are relevant 
topics.

It is also the objective this project to implement and analyze the 
developed technology on the three industrial case studies provided by 
the industrial partners. 

The post-doc position is for 24 months and the work is going to be 
executed both at DSM and at Control Systems Group at Electrical 
Engineering Department of Eindhoven University of Technology

Specific duties and responsibilities of the Post-Doc are directed 
towards the batch reactive distillation unit and will be in the area of 

•	Soft sensing, alignment of the model with the process data and 
process monitoring
•	Controllability analysis and Model based control /optimization 
of batch processes

•	Author and review technical reports and publications in 
internationally acclaimed journals
•	Present research results both internally and externally


Group Description:


The research mission of the Control Systems Group is to master 
complexity present in mechatronics, power systems, automotive systems 
and industrial processes. The group focuses on fundamental research in 
model reduction, spatial temporal systems, Lyapunov methods for real-
time control and distributed systems, and system identification. 
Furthermore, many industrial projects are being carried out in the area 
of automotive, process control, wireless sensor networks, power systems. 
The group actively participates in the Dutch Institute of Systems and 
Control (DISC). For more detailed information on the activities of the 
group please check http://www.tue.nl/cs/


Interested candidates with a background in systems and control, 
(applied) physics, mathematics, electrical engineering, mechanical 
engineering, chemical engineering or a related field are encouraged to 
send their CV + motivation letter to [log in to unmask]