07.09.2026 Control Engineering Practice Paper Prize 2026
The power of collaboration between research and industry.
We are delighted that our joint research by AIT Austrian Institute of Technology, TU Wien ACIN and voestalpine Stahl GmbH has received the Control Engineering Practice Paper Prize 2026.
The prize is a triennial IFAC award recognizing outstanding papers published in Control Engineering Practice during the three years preceding each IFAC World Congress.
The awarded paper, “Nonlinear model predictive temperature control of a cooling process for steel strips undergoing phase transformations”, presents a nonlinear model predictive control approach that was successfully implemented at the voestalpine production plant and is now in continuous operation.
A great example of how scientific excellence, close collaboration and advanced control engineering can translate into measurable industrial impact.
Congratulations to the entire team!
16.07.2026 Auszeichnung der Fahrzeugverband-Jubiläumsstiftung an Dr. René Lenz
22.05.2026 2026 TMECH Best Paper Award Finalist
We are happy to announce that the paper “Unified Control of an Orbital Manipulator for the Approach and Grasping of a Free-Floating Satellite,” published in IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (vol. 30, no. 6, December 2025), was named a finalist for the 2026 TMECH Best Paper Award. The paper was selected as one of 5 finalists from over 700 papers published in TMECH in 2025.
19.05.2026 Studienpreis der SEW-EURODRIVE-Stiftung
15.05.2026 1st Place at Mobile Manipulation Challenge
The paper “Per-Group Error, Not Total MSE: Fine-Tuning Vision-Language-Action Models for 11-DoF Mobile Manipulation” (Pau Montagut Bofi, Mario García Blasco, Tessa Pulli, Markus Vincze) participated in the Mobile Manipulation Challenge organized by Toyota at the workshop “From Data to Decisions: VLA Pipelines for Real Robot”. This workshop is part of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) 2026.
Today it has been announced that this paper won the first prize, outperforming 36 participants from around the world.
Congratulations to the team on this excellent achievement!
11.12.2025 Würdigungspreis 2025 für Bernhard Schimkowitsch
25.11.2025 Andreas Kugi mit dem Kardinal-Innitzer-Würdigungspreis ausgezeichnet
10.11.2025 Young Author Award at MMM2025
It´s time to celebrate:
Nico Fischer has been awarded the Young Author Award for the best MMM 2025 paper at the 20th IFAC Symposium on Control, Optimization and Automation in Mining, Minerals and Metal Processing (MMM 2025).
At the MMM 2025, that took place in Lima, Peru, in October 2025, he presented his research results titled “Empirical Roll Wear Model to Predict Changes of the Roll Surface Height Distribution in a Temper Rolling Process” (N. Fischer, A. Steinboeck, A. Kugi).
fotocredit: MMM2025
23.07.2025 Best Paper Award at Mechatronic Systems Symposium
Great Success for the ACIN Team at the 10th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems!
Two ACIN papers were not only selected for presentation but also honored with prestigious award nominations:
- Finalist – Mechatronics 2025 Best Paper Award:
“Stabilization of a Rotary Inverted Pendulum using Neuromorphic Vision Feedback”
by Lukas Pechhacker, Gerald Ebmer, Minh Nhat Vu, and Wolfgang Kemmetmueller - Winner – Mechatronics 2025 Best Student Paper Award:
“Leveraging Contact Dynamics for Energy- and Torque-Optimized Inverse Kinematics”
by Alexander Wachter, Christian Hartl-Nesic, and Andreas Kugi
This outstanding scientific recognition is a fantastic boost for the team and a testament to their innovative research!