Email: armin.nurkanovic@imtek.uni-freiburg.de
Phone: +49-761-203-73278
I received my Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Tuzla in 2015 and my Master's degree in Electrical Engineering and Information Technology from the Technical University of Munich in 2018. I received a DAAD scholarship for my master's studies. My PhD was supervised by Prof. Moritz Diehl. I started my PhD in 2018 as an external industrial PhD student at Siemens Technology Munich, in the Autonomous Systems and Control research group. In October 2021, I moved to the University of Freiburg. Together with my co-authors, I received the IEEE Control Systems Letters Outstanding Paper Award for 2022. I successfully defended my PhD (summa cum laude) in November 2023. For a brief overview of my research, please take a look at my interview in the IEEE Control Systems Magazine.
I am spending the summer semester of 2025 at the Institute for Mathematical Optimization at TU Braunschweig as an interim professor.
My current research focuses on developing numerical methods for the optimal control of hybrid and nonsmooth dynamical systems. This includes systems described by ODEs with discontinuous vector fields (e.g., Filippov systems, switched systems, and dynamic complementarity systems), as well as systems with state jumps, and systems with mixed-integer control inputs. I am particularly interested in real-time optimization methods applicable to broad classes of such systems, which are essential for model predictive control. I also take an active interest in robust optimization and control theory. I am also involved in applying these methods to real-world systems, with a focus on robotics and renewable energy.
For more details about my work see the lecture slides of the Summer School on Direct Methods for Optimal Control of Nonsmooth Systems or the Winter School on Numerical Methods for Optimal Control of Nonsmooth Systems.
For publications, check out the list below or my Google Scholar page.
Summer semester 2025
Numerical optimal control (exercises)
The implementation of all of my methods and reformulations are publicly available in the open-source packages nosnoc and nosnoc_py.
If you are from industry or academia and interested in collaboration, please feel free to contact me. I am always open to engaging in exciting academic or application-oriented collaborations.
I am open to supervising talented and ambitious Bachelor's and Master's students of mathematics, engieneering and computer science for their theses. You are welcome to propose a topic, or I can help identify one that aligns with both our interests. If you are interested in working with me, please send an email outlining your area of interest, and attach your CV and a recent transcript of records to your email. Please take the time to look at the topics that I work on -- I do not reply to generic emails generated by LLMs.
Currently available master theses: