Prof. Ali Zolghadri

I was invited to take part in the “Defense” Day organized by the Aerospace Valley cluster on November 6, 2025, at the University of Bordeaux. This event was dedicated to the challenges of national defense in France, an opportunity for me to listen to presentations from key French players in the defense industry and to meet Mr. Bruno Darboux, President of the Aerospace Valley cluster and Vice President, Aerospace Ecosystem Development at Airbus.

Having been, a few years ago, co-leader of a Strategic Activity Domain (DAS) within the Aerospace Valley cluster, I was pleased to rediscover the warm and professional atmosphere of this major competitiveness cluster, which plays a unifying and structuring role in the French aerospace industry.

J’ai été invité à participer à la journée « Défense » organisée par le pôle Aerospace Valley le 6 novembre 2025 à l’Université de Bordeaux. Cette journée était dédiée aux enjeux de la Défense en France : l’occasion pour moi d’écouter les interventions des acteurs majeurs de l’industrie de la défense et de rencontrer le Président du pôle Aerospace Valley, Monsieur Bruno Darboux, également Vice-President Aerospace Ecosystem Development chez Airbus.

Ayant été, il y a quelques années, co-animateur d’un DAS (Domaine d’Activité Stratégique) au sein du pôle Aerospace Valley, j’ai été heureux de retrouver l’ambiance à la fois chaleureuse et professionnelle de ce grand pôle de compétitivité qui joue un rôle fédérateur et structurant dans l’industrie aérospatiale française.

Conference Systol 2025 – 6th International Conference on Control and Fault-Tolerant Systems, Cyprus, 6-8 October:

During the session “aerospace systems” which I chaired, I presented two communications :

 1. A. Zolghadri. Methodological Pathways for Safety and Risk Mitigation in Reduced Crew Aviation Operations.

Abstract: This short communication aims to sketch some methodological pathways for addressing new safety challenges in future civil aviation operations. It integrates model-based methods inspired from robust control theories with data-driven learning-enabled techniques, incorporating human oversight. The goal is to formulate key enablers for robust, scalable, cyber-physical and human-centric innovative solutions. The purpose of this note is to offer general methodological directions rather than specific technical developments.

2. D. Efimov (INRIA), A. Zolghadri. Input-To-State Stability of Aircraft Longitudinal Motion Based on Parameter-Varying Persidskii Modelling.

Abstract: This paper investigates the input-to-state stabilization of a class of uncertain nonlinear systems using a Parameter-Varying Persidskii (PVP) modeling approach. A key advantage over traditional Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV) methods, common in aeronautics, is that it does not require embedding all nonlinearities, leading to controllers with improved global stability and convergence properties. This advantage allows for a more direct treatment of nonlinearities and avoids limitations associated with local LPV approximations, such as issues in handling large parameter variations. Within this PVP framework, a novel stabilizing control design method is developed and applied to the longitudinal motion control of an aircraft. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated and compared with LPV-based and classical gain-scheduling control strategies.

Below a selection of some recent papers. See at here for a complete list of my publications.

Under revision:

• D. Efimov, A. Zolghadri. Modeling and control of flight dynamics using Parameter-Varying Persidskii representation. International Journal of Control.
• D. Efimov, C. Combastel, A. Zolghadri. Robust Estimation for Continuous-Time Parameter-Varying Persidskii Systems. Automatica.
• Trapiello C., Combastel C., Zolghadri A. (2024). Verification of Neural Control Systems using Symbolic Zonotopes and Polynotopes. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control Arxiv file: at here
• L. Zhang, Z. Wang, X. Li, A. Zolghadri, Y. Shen (2025). Zonotopic Fault Detection for Space Tethered Satellite System Based on Polynomial Chaos Expansion. IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems.
• D. Xiao, J. Wang, Y. Zhang, A. Zolghadri, J. Chen (2025). A combined data-driven and model-based approach for Real-Time Estimation of Critical Hydrodynamic Parameters of Underwater Vehicles. Ocean Engineering (Elsevier).
• S. Yang, Z. Wang, X. A. Zolghadri, T. Ngoc Dinh (2025). Satellite Emergency  Attitude Control Using Magnetic Torquers and Reduced Reaction Wheels. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems.

Accepted / Published:

• J. Zhang, C. Combastel, D. Efimov, A. Zolghadri (2025). Robust Stability and stabilization of continuous-Time Parameter-Varying Persidskii Systems. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. May 2025. DOI: 10.1109/TAC.2025.3567675
  
• Z. Wang, N. Wang, A. Zolghadri, Z. Zhao, Y. Shen (2025). On-orbit interval estimation of satellite inertia parameter based on zonotopic Kalman filter. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems. July 2025. DOI: 10.1109/TAES.2025.3593218
• X. He, A. Zolghadri, C. Xu, S. Yang (2025). Dynamic Coupling Analysis and Control of One-dimensional Tracking Turntable and Satellite Platform. 23th IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Aerospace (ACA 2025), Harbin, China.
• D. Efimov, A. Zolghadri (2025). Input-to-State Stability of aircraft longitudinal motion based on Parameter-Varying Persidskii modelling. The 6th International Conference on Control and Fault-Tolerant Systems (SYSTOL). October 6-8, 2025 in Ayia Napa, Cyprus.
• A. Zolghadri (2025). Methodological pathways for safety and risk mitigation in reduced crew aviation operations. The 6th International Conference on Control and Fault-Tolerant Systems (SYSTOL). October 6-8, 2025 in Ayia Napa, Cyprus.
• D. Efimov, C. Combastel, A. Zolghadri (2025). Observer design for parameter-varying Persidskii systems using parameter-independent Lyapunov functions. 64th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

• S. Yang, Z. Wang, X. Pan, D. Li, A. Zolghadri (2024). Satellite Magnetic Attitude Control in Sun-Safe Mode Using Control Lyapunov Function. IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems. December 2024, PP(99):1-11, DOI:10.1109/TAES.2024.3509386
• X. Wang, A. Zolghadri, C. Wang  (2024). Covert Attack Detection and Secure Control for Cyber Physical Systems. Journal of the Franklin Institute (elsevier). Volume 361, Issue 18, December 2024, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfranklin.2024.107323. Available online at here.
  
• A. Zolghadri (2024). A review of fault management issues in aircraft systems: Current status and future directions. Progress in Aerospace Sciences (elsevier). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paerosci.2024.101008. Available online at here.
  
• Zhang J., Combastel C., Efimov D., Zolghadri A. (2024). Robust Stability Analysis for Continuous-Time Parameter-Varying Persidskii Systems. European Control Conference, 25-28 June, 2024, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Zolghadri A. (2024). Fault management issues in aircraft systems: current status and future directions. EuroGNC 2024, 12-14 June, Bristol, UK.
• Arthur Perodou, Christophe Combastel, Ali Zolghadri (2024). Critical-time metric for risk analysis against sharp input anomalies: computation and application case study. Journal of the Franklin Institute (elsevier). Vol. 361, Issue 7, May 2024, pdf file: at here.

On September 28, I delivered an invited talk via visioconference titled “Methodological Pathways for Safety Risk Mitigation in Reduced-Crew Aviation Operations” at the 2025 International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Information (ICAI 2025), held from September 27–29 in Xi’an, China. https://icai-conf.com/index.html.

Jing Chang, one of my former postdoctoral fellows and now an Associate Professor at Xi’an University, at ICAI 2025:

The following paper is accepted and will be presented at CDC 2025 – 64^th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, December 10-12, 2025, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil:

D. Efimov, C. Combastel, A. Zolghadri.  Observer Design for Parameter-Varying Persidskii Systems Using Parameter-Independent Lyapunov Functions.

Abstract: This paper addresses the state observer design for parameter-varying Persidskii systems. These systems exhibit dynamics that depend both on time-varying parameters, as in the Linear Parameter Varying (LPV) framework, and sector nonlinearities of the state, as in classical Persidskii systems. A state observer design is proposed, and its stability is analyzed using parameter-independent Lyapunov functions. The conditions for tuning the observer gains are derived within the input-to-output stability framework. They are first expressed as parameterized matrix inequalities, and then further reduced to linear ones under additional mild assumptions. The effectiveness of the proposed design is shown through an academic example.

Since the first edition in 2020, I have consistently been ranked among the top 2% of scientists worldwide across all disciplines, according to the annual evaluation by Stanford University (USA) and Elsevier.

Each year since 2020, Stanford University (USA) and Elsevier release, in October, a list of the most-cited scientists across all research fields and subfields: the World’s Top 2% Scientists. This ranking is based on the bibliometric information contained in the Scopus database, and includes more than 8 million scientists considered to be active worldwide, with 22 scientific fields and 176 subfields taken into account.

Plenary talk at “3ème Congrès Annuel de la SAGIP”. Mulhouse, France, May 21-23, 2025: https://sagip2025.sciencesconf.org/resource/page/id/7

The induction ceremony for the IUF laureates took place on October 18, 2024, at the Sorbonne in Paris, with the presence of the French Minister for Research and Innovation (see at here – in French):

With Brigitte, my wife.

I have the great honor of being appointed a senior member of IUF (Institut Universitaire de France – Fundamental Chair Laureate) for the term 2024-2029 by a decision of the French Minister responsible for higher education, Research and Innovation. See at here.