Sandra Zarychta, a PhD student at the Interdisciplinary Doctoral School (IDS) of the Technical University of Lodz, has been awarded the prize for the Best Poster Presentation at the international conference Dynamics Days Europe 2023, held in Naples.

The PLA reports that the young scientist was awarded in Italy for her poster: ‘Numerical and experimental investigation of a discontinuous capsule drive with the use of Fourier series-based method of control optimisation’.

Sandra Zarychta is studying at IDS PŁ in the subject of Mechanical Engineering, her main supervisor is Professor Jerzy Wojewoda and her assistant supervisor is Dr Marek Balcerzak, both scientists work at the Department of Mechanical Dynamics at the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering of PŁ.  

Sandra Zarychta explains that the subject of her research is the optimal control of mechanical systems with discontinuities, which in mechanics can be caused by, among others, impacts or dry friction. As part of the PRELUDIUM grant, a new method for estimating optimal control, based on Fourier series, is used. It allows a control function to be described by a number of parameters, which can then be optimised numerically.