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Niklas Schmid
Niklas Schmid
Ph.D. Student
Automatic Control Laboratory (IfA), ETH Zürich
Supervisors: Prof. John Lygeros, Prof. Tobias Sutter
Physikstrasse 3, ETL K12
8092 Zürich, Switzerland

Summary

I am a Ph.D. student at the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zürich under the supervision of Professor John Lygeros and Professor Tobias Sutter. My research focuses on the control of stochastic systems under safety constraints, which includes the analysis of reachability, invariance, and chance-constrained optimal control problems. Therefore, I utilize tools from dynamic programming and convex optimization.

News
  • 22.05.2025 Our paper "Distributionally Robust Optimization over Wasserstein Balls with iid Structure" is now available on Arxiv!
  • 01.03.2025 I am starting a 6-month research visit at Professor Chuchu Fan's group at REALM, MIT!
  • 11.02.2025 Our paper "Computing Optimal Joint Chance Constrained Control Policies" was accepted for publication in the Transactions of Automatic Control (TAC)! Arxiv-Link, Publisher-Link.
  • 06.02.2025 Daniel Böhler was awarded the best Bachelor Thesis 2024 by the Swiss Control Association (Schweizer Gesellschaft für Automatik)!
  • 03.07.2024 Exciting, interdisciplinary collaboration on "Stopping Power and Range Estimations in Proton Therapy based on Prompt Gamma Timing". Results can be found here.
  • Research

    Safety Constrained Stochastic Systems

    Real-world systems are often subject to uncertainties and disturbances, which may stem from external influences or unmodelled dynamics. Such uncertainties can lead to an unsafe control behavior if not properly managed. Yet, robustifying the controller to all possible uncertainties can lead to a poor performance.

    Fortunately, it is often not necessary to robustify to all possible realizations of uncertain events or parameters, as some may be unlikely. Allowing for a neglegible probability of safety violations can thereby drastically improve performance. Motivated by this fact, the main focus of my PhD is to explore controller designs optimized for performance under a pre-specified safety probability. I synthesize such controllers utilizing dynamic programming and convex optimization.



    Precision Agriculture

    Related to my theoretical work, I am interested in practical applications involving biological systems, such as medical instruments as well as precision agriculture. Not only do such systems have highly nonlinear dynamics, making them challenging to control. But they are also subject to biological variability, introducing uncertainties in the evolution of the system state.

    I am currently working on the design and control of a hydroponics system, which is a soil-less cultivation method that allows for a precise control over plant growth conditions. The goal is to develop an optimal, learning-based control strategy that maximizes crop yield vs. resource usage (water, electricity). I further study the optimal fertilization of fields.

    Sustainable and efficient use of resources in agriculture will be of ever rising importance in the face of climate change and increasing food demand. Further, the control of biological systems is challenging; While models are hard to derive and imprecise due to biological variability, data is scarce and expensive to acquire. This calls for alternatives to popular data-hungry learning based control approaches.

    Biography

    2025
    Research visit at REALM, MIT (Cambridge, USA)
    Visiting Prof. Chuchu Fan's group to work on stochastic control hierarchies
    Since Nov 2021
    Ph.D. at the Automatic Control Laboratory, ETH Zürich (Switzerland)
    Supervisors: Prof. John Lygeros, Prof. Tobias Sutter
    2020 - 2021
    Internship at Olympus Surgical Technologies Europe (Berlin, Germany)
    Control of electrosurgical generators and modelling of tissue impedance
    2019 - 2021
    M.Sc. in Medical Engineering, University of Lübeck (Germany)
    Thesis: Gaussian Process based MPC of Tethered Quadcopters
    2016 - 2019
    B.Sc. in Medical Engineering, University of Lübeck (Germany)
    Thesis: Cooperative Localization of Quadcopters using Factor Graphs

    Publications

    All of my publications are available as open-access on Arxiv!

    Preprints

    • A. Kharitenko, M. Fochesato, A. Tsiamis, N. Schmid, J. Lygeros, "Distributionally Robust Optimization over Wasserstein Balls with iid Structure", Arxiv, 2025, Arxiv-Link.
    • J. Miller, N. Schmid, M. Tacchi, D. Henrion, R. S. Smith, "Peak Time-Windowed Risk Estimation of Stochastic Processes", Arxiv, 2024, Arxiv-Link.
    • Y. Li, A. Karapetyan, N. Schmid, J. Lygeros, K. H. Johansson and J. Martensson, "Parallel Rollout for Deterministic Optimal Control", Arxiv, 2023, Arxiv-Link.

    Journal Articles

    • N. Schmid, M. Fochesato, S.H.Q. Li, T. Sutter and J. Lygeros, "Computing Optimal Joint Chance Constrained Control Policies", IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (2025). Arxiv-Link, Publisher-Link.
    • J. F. Werner, F. Pennazio, N. Schmid, E. Fiorina, D. Bersani, P. Cerello, J. Kasprzak, N. Mosco, S. Ranjbar, R. Sacchi, V. Ferrero and M. Rafecas, "Stopping Power and Range Estimations in Proton Therapy based on Prompt Gamma Timing: Motion Models and Automated Parameter Optimization", Physics in Medicine & Biology, 2024. Publisher-Link.
    • N. Schmid, M. Fochesato, T. Sutter and J. Lygeros, "Joint Chance Constrained Optimal Control via Linear Programming", IEEE Control Systems Letters, 2024. Arxiv-Link, Publisher-Link.

    Conference Papers

    • J. Miller, N. Schmid, M. Tacchi, D. Henrion, R. S. Smith, "Peak Time-Windowed Mean Estimation using Convex Optimization", 2024 IEEE 63rd Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Milano, Italy, 2024, ETH-Link, Publisher-Link.
    • N. Schmid and J. Lygeros, "Probabilistic Reachability and Invariance Computation of Stochastic Systems using Linear Programming", 22nd IFAC World Congress, Yokohama, Japan, 2023. Arxiv-Link, Publisher-Link.
    • J. Gruner, N. Schmid, G. Männel, J. Grasshof, H. S. Abbas and P. Rostalski, "Recursively Feasible Model Predictive Control using Latent Force Models Applied to Disturbed Quadcopters", 2022 IEEE 61st Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Cancun, Mexico, 2022. Publisher-Link.
    • N. Schmid, J. Gruner, H. S. Abbas and P. Rostalski, "A real-time GP based MPC for quadcopters with unknown disturbances", 2022 American Control Conference (ACC), Atlanta, USA, 2022. Arxiv-Link, Publisher-Link.

    Teaching

    Teaching has a high priority for me. I believe that it is our responsibility to share our fascination and knowledge to inspire future generations of students in the same way that it has been shared with us.

    Courses

    Term Course Role/Activity Lecturer(s)
    Fall 2024/23 Control Systems Presenting exercise sessions Prof. Florian Dörfler
    Spring 2024 Nonlinear Systems and Control Presenting exercise sessions Dr. Eduardo Gallestey, Dr. Raffaele Soloperto
    Spring 2022 - Fall 2023 Control Systems Laboratory Organization of hands-on lab courses Prof. John Lygeros
    Fall 2018 - Spring 2021 Electronics Design and presentation of exercise sessions Prof. Philipp Rostalski
    Fall 2018 Radioactivity (practical exercises) Supervision of students Prof. Christian Hübner

    Student Projects

    I usually have several open student projects available. Feel free to contact me at any time if you are looking for a Bachelor-, Semester-, or Master-project based around control theory and hands-on applications.

    Name Title Type Year Co-Supervisor
    Salma Elfeki High-Performance MPC Controllers Under Environmental Changes MT 2025 Riccardo Zuliani
    Rye Gleason Optimal Crop Fertilization Control Strategies and Verification MT 2025 Kevin Wallington
    Tristan Zeller Joint Chance Constrained Reinforcement Learning SP 2025 Marta Fochesato
    Daniel Böhler Iterative Learning Control for Plants in Controlled Environments SP 2025 Kevin Wallington
    Jair Reyes Optimal Control of Plants in Controlled Environments SP 2025 Kevin Wallington
    Nicola Scagnetti Design and Control of a Hydroponics System MT 2025
    Jonathan Hilberg Model Free Joint Chance Constrained Optimal Control MT 2024 Marta Fochesato
    Andrey Kharitenko Robust Covariance Steering MT 2024 Marta Fochesato, Anastasios Tsiamis
    Simon Dreher Redesign of an Hydroponics System SP 2024
    Ariel Bergmann Control of an Inverted Pendulum BT 2024
    Alexander Kaspar Meta-Learning Model Predictive Control for the Ball-On-A-Plate System SP 2024 Jiaqi Yan, Riccardo Zuliani
    Mirco Vandeventer Meta-Learning Reinforcement Learning for the Ball-On-A-Plate System SP 2024 Jiaqi Yan
    Simon Frölich Hardware Reconfiguration and Control of the Ball-On-A-Plate System BT 2024
    Gian-Andrin Coolen Hydroponics - Mechanics BT 2024
    Oscar Kläsi Hydroponics - Electronics BT 2024
    Leo Noth Hydroponics - Sensing and Control BT 2024
    Daniel Böhler* Hydroponics - Software Design and Control BT 2024
    Alexander Kaspar MPC of the Mounted-Helicopter Experiment BT 2023
    Elias Bai Improved Reinforcement Learning Control of the Ball-On-A-Plate System BT 2023
    Joram Ebinger LQR and Reinforcement Learning Control of a Ball-On-A-Plate System BT 2023
    Gentrit Gashi Water-Level Sensing for the Quad-Tank Experiment BT 2023

    BT: Bachelor Thesis, SP: Semester Project, MT: Master Thesis
    * Awarded Best Bachelor Thesis 2024 by the Swiss Control Association (Schweizer Gesellschaft für Automatik).

    Grants & Funding

    I am grateful for the financial support I have received during my Ph.D. studies, which enabled me to pursue my vision in research and teaching. I was supported by the European Research Council under grant 787845 (OCAL) and the Swiss National Science Foundation under NCCR Automation under grant 51NF40_225155. I further received the following grants and funding.

    Amount Source Description Year
    85,735 CHF KIM (Commission of Computer Science, ETH Zürich) Grant for designing a hands-on control class using cart-pole systems 2024
    20,000 CHF NCCR Automation, Swiss National Science Foundation Grant for my research visit at MIT, Boston, USA 2024
    - ACC (American Control Conference) Student Travel Grant 2022