Prof. Dr. ir. Jan Swevers

Division of Production Engineering, Machine Design and Automation (PMA)
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven)
Celestijnenlaan 300B, Mailbox 02420, B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee), Belgium
Tel: (+32)16 32 25 40, Fax: (+32)16 32 29 87
Email: jan . swevers @ mech . kuleuven . be (remove the spaces!)
(How to reach us)

Jan Swevers was born in Leuven, Belgium, in 1963. He received the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in mechanical engineering from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (K.U.Leuven), Belgium, in 1986 and 1992 respectively. He is Laureate of the Belgian Royal Academy for Fine Arts, Letters and Sciences) with the publication: ”High Performance Tracking Control of Flexible Robots” (1992), and won The Kitakyushu Mechatronics Award, for contribution to Studies on Mechatronics through an excellent paper presentation at Mechatronics 1998.
He became Assistant Professor in 1995, Associate Professor in 2000, and Professor in 2004, all in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Division of Production Engineering, Machine Design and Automation (PMA), of that same university, where he teaches two under graduate courses:

Control theory, in co-operation with Professor Joris De Schutter.
Identification and advanced control of mechatronic systems.

He is a member of the Programme Committee of the Belgian inter-university Graduate School in Systems and Control since 1993, which is now the Graduate School in Systems, Optimization, Control and Networks (SOCN) and organises graduate level courses for PhD-students.

Research related actvities

Research interests
- Model based robust control of (non-)linear multi-variable systems,
- Experimental identification and control of robot manipulators,
- Modelling, identification and compensation of nonlinear dynamics in mechatronic systems, e.g. friction.
- Optimization, e.g. dynamic optimization of multi-body systems.
Promoter of 8 PhD-students, co-ordinator of several industrial and basic research projects. Click on this link to find out about the different research topics.
Coordinator of the Control Research Group at PMA.
Co-promoter of the Optimization in Engineering Centre of Excellence (OPTEC) of the K.U.Leuven.
Coordinator of the ICCOS (Identification and Control of COmplex Systems) Scientific Research Network of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen, Belgium).

Selected publications

Page design: Jan Swevers
Information provider: Division PMA, Dept. Mechanical Engineering, K.U.Leuven
Copyright 2007, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, http://people.mech.kuleuven.be/~jswevers
Last updated: April, 2007