Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue (B.1953) 

French control theorist and expert in uncertain nonlinear systems and hybrid systems

Affiliation: French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)

"Success is often the consequence of taking risks, encouraged or not, in new directions or with new tools."

Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue, a distinguished French professor emeritus and CNRS research fellow, is best known for her theoretical advances in analyzing and controlling complex nonlinear systems and their application in power and neural networks. She has also been a pioneer in building relationships between European research groups within nonlinear control. She has created and supervised several large research networks, including the first European Nonlinear Control Network (NCN), the Marie Curie Control Training Site (CTS), and the European Network of Excellence (HYCON). 

From fundamental research to practical applications

Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue's research interests have primarily been the analysis of nonlinear systems using functional developments and singular optimal control. She discovered links between Volterra developments and the Hamiltonian approach.  She then contributed to the theory of realization from nonlinear input-output relations, the design of control for trajectory tracking, and the design of stabilizing and robust controls for uncertain nonlinear systems and for hybrid systems. Later, ground-breaking methodologies of observer and output feedback controller designs for a large class of nonlinear systems were introduced. Recently systems containing nonlinear PDEs were studied, possibly subject to parameter uncertainty and in the case where inputs and outputs are subject to communication constraints like delays and sampling. On the application side, and in collaboration with the SuperGrid Institute in Lyon, she has developed digital tools to help integrate renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, into the power grid without destabilizing it due to their fluctuating nature. Similar principles can also be applied to neural networks, and Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue has been involved in applied research that could help improve the treatment of, for example, Parkinson's disease.

More recently, Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue has become interested in the societal impact of emerging technologies. She has founded and coordinated an international panel of experts – called the Intergovernmental Panel for Responsible Development of Incoming Technologies (IPREDICT), which was inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – to analyze the ethical and societal issues associated with digital technologies and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. She has also invested substantial amounts of time in research on the interactions of cyber-physical systems with humans – the field now called Cyber-Physical and Human Systems (CPHS). She has said that: "Although extremely positive and attractive, new technologies also raise many concerns about the integrity of human beings, their dignity, their autonomy, and their freedoms. Some challenges for humanity where systems and control should play a big role are in front of us!".

Founder and leader of several prominent networks

When spending a year at Arizona State University in Tempe in the US in 1987, Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue discovered the extensive collaboration of American control researchers with manufacturers – to help them improve the robustness and efficiency of automotive and aeronautics vehicles. Upon her return to France, Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue put this cooperative philosophy into practice. Not only did she start collaborating with an automotive group, but she realized the potential of increasing cooperation between research groups in Europe working on similar fundamental and applied topics. After traveling extensively across Europe to build connections and strengthened by several promising encounters, she created the first European research network in control theory in 1998 and subsequently coordinated the largest Marie Curie Training Site network, which allowed 160 postdoctoral researchers to receive grants for extended stays abroad. Between 2004 and 2014, she led both phases of the European excellence network HYCON (Highly-complex and networked control systems), which brought together scientists from 26 European research institutions and dozens of private-sector actors specializing in communication networks, industrial processes, and energy distribution. Many new collaborations were created, and to sustain these, Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue founded the European Embedded Control Institute (EECI), which offers a wide range of training programs in control for PhD students worldwide taught by renowned international experts. The institute also offers the Annual European Systems and Control PhD Thesis Award. 

Background and Life

Early interest in mathematics

Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue was born in Toulouse in the south of France. She comes from a modest family, her father being a technical forest agent, and she was sent to boarding school at a very early age. As a small child, she was quickly attracted to algebra and geometry, and she liked to teach her classmates who had difficulties learning. After elementary school, she continued studying mathematics. She earned a mathematics Master's at the University of Paul Sabatier in Toulouse in 1976. She discovered control theory in the early 1980s. Trained as a mathematician, she approached the research field from its theoretical side through the analysis and control of nonlinear systems. After earning a PhD at Paris-Saclay University in 1980 (her thesis focusing on signal processing and control theory) and a Habilitation Doctorate Degree in 1985, she started her career at CNRS.

Positions and awards

Françoise Lamnabhi-Lagarrigue has stayed at CNRS for her entire career but has had several prominent positions apart from her professorship at CNRS. She has, among other things, been the scientific manager of the Marie Curie Control Training Site (2002 to 2006) and of the HYCON Network of Excellence (2005 to 2009) and HYCON2 (2010 to 2014). She founded the European Embedded Control Institute (EECI) in 2006. She was the chair of the yearly EECI International Graduate School on Control til 2020. She has also served as a Member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Technical Board (2011 to 2017) and as Elected Member of the Board of Governors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Control Systems Society (2003 to 2005 and 2018 to 2020). She was Senior Area Editor of the International Journal of Control (2002 to 2020) and Editor-in-Chief of Annual Reviews in Control (2015 to 2023). She has supervised 26 PhD theses, published over a hundred journal papers, and co-edited numerous books and special issues, including “Nonlinear Control in the year 2000” and "Cyber-Physical-Human Systems. Fundamentals and Applications".

She received the Michel Monpetit Prize from the French Academy of Science in 2008 and the Iréne Joliot-Curie Prize as Woman Scientist of the Year in 2019 for her research in automation, both theoretical and its application in electricity production and distribution. In 2016, she was named a fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) for her contributions to observer and controller design methodologies for nonlinear and hybrid systems. She obtained a Grade A (fully meets ERC's excellence criterion) from the European Research Council (ERC) for her 2018 ERC Advanced Grant proposal “OBSERVE”. She is a knight of the Legion of Honor and Officer of the National Order of Merit – both prominent French orders of merit, the first established in 1802 by Napoleon Bonaparte and the latter established in 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. In 2020, she received the IFAC Outstanding Service Award.