PhD: Fair, Scalable Distributed Optimization for Networks

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e); Eindhoven; On-site; EUR 36,000 - 45,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

ABP pension scheme

8% holiday allowance and 8.3% year-end

Generous leave options

Job summary

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in Eindhoven is seeking a PhD candidate to design scalable distributed optimization and control methods for large energy networks. You will tackle fair resource allocation among thousands of agents in electrical grids with local information and limited communication.

You will join TU/e’s Control Systems group and collaborate with energy experts to prove guarantees on convergence, stability and fairness, while testing on realistic distribution networks

Qualifications

• A master’s degree (or equivalent) in Systems and Control, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Applied Mathematics, Operations Research or a related field.
• Strong background in control theory and/or optimization (convex or distributed optimization, multi-agent systems, MPC, game theory).
• Solid mathematical skills and enjoyment of rigorous analysis and proofs.
• Programming experience (Python, MATLAB or Julia).
• Fluent in English (C1 level).

Responsibilities

• Formulate fair resource allocation problems for congestion management as a large-scale multi-agent optimization problem.
• Design distributed optimization algorithms (consensus-based, primal-dual, ADMM-type, game-theoretic).
• Develop fairness-aware feedback controllers (distributed MPC, online feedback optimization).
• Analyze probabilistic allocation policies and their fairness over time.
• Handle uncertainty with stochastic/robust/learning-based control approaches.
• Prove theoretical guarantees: convergence, stability, robustness, fairness.
• Validate methods on simulations of realistic networks and real-world data.
• Publish in leading control and optimization venues and collaborate across departments.

Skills

Control theory

Optimization

Distributed control

Multi-agent systems

Python

MATLAB/Julia

Education

Master's degree in Systems and Control or related field

Tools

Python

MATLAB

Julia

Job description

Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) in Eindhoven is seeking a PhD candidate to design scalable distributed optimization and control methods for large energy networks. You will tackle fair resource allocation among thousands of agents in electrical grids with local information and limited communication.

You will join TU/e’s Control Systems group and collaborate with energy experts to prove guarantees on convergence, stability and fairness, while testing on realistic distribution networks