Manuel Camarda, a PhD student in Information Technology at Politecnico di Milano, won the Best Young Paper Award presented at the 34th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2026), held in Ancona from 23 to 26 June 2026.
The award-winning paper was written together with Prof. Gian Paolo Incremona, Prof. Alessio La Bella,and Prof. Patrizio Colaneri from the Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering at Politecnico di Milano, in collaboration with Prof. Antonella Ferrara from the University of Pavia.
The study, entitled “Design of a Suboptimal Second-Order Sliding Mode Controller to Improve Robustness in Hybrid Trains”, proposes an advanced control strategy to improve voltage regulation in hybrid trains powered by energy storage systems.
These trains operate under highly variable conditions, with load changes, parameter uncertainties, and possible modelling errors. For this reason, ensuring robust and reliable control is essential.
The paper introduces a control system capable of quickly and accurately tracking the desired voltage value for traction motors and auxiliary services. The simulations, compared with traditional systems, show improved performance in terms of speed, accuracy, and robustness.