Manchester researchers receive prestigious Automatica Paper Prize Award for 2023-2026 IFAC Triennium

Researchers from The University of Manchester have received the Automatica Paper Prize Award, one of the most prestigious international awards for published research in systems and control. The prize was awarded at the 23rd World Congress of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) in Busan, South Korea, in August 2026. 

Professor Alexander Lanzon, Chair in Control Engineering, and Dr Chao Chen, Lecturer in Control Systems, both from the Control Systems and Robotics group in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, received the Automatica Paper Prize Award, together with their collaborator Professor Sei Zhen Khong, from National Sun Yat-sen University, for their paper in the 2023–2026 IFAC triennium entitled Feedback Stability Analysis via Dissipativity with Dynamic Supply Rates 

Published in Automatica in February 2025, this paper (DOI: 10.1016/j.automatica.2024.112000) develops a new fundamental control theoretical framework to analyse feedback stability of nonlinear dynamical systems via a new energy dissipation notion that permits dynamic supply rates. This framework advances classical dissipativity theory and has important implications in practical applications particularly for nonlinear electrical and mechanical dynamical systems.