PhD Course on Advanced Motion Planning and Control, 6+3 hp

An advanced course in motion planning and control will be offered during the fall semester of 2026, organized jointly by Division of Vehicular Systems at Linköping University and Department of Automatic Control at Lund University. The course is open to PhD students at all ELLIIT partners.

Course Content

The course will cover both fundamental algorithms and state-of-the-art methods for motion planning and control. A significant part of the course will be dedicated to implementation of selected algorithms and subsequent applications on small examples to the purpose of gaining an understanding of the considered methods. In this perspective, discussion of the methods and results from the implementation assignments with the other course participants is essential. \

A preliminary list of topics for the course is:

• Module 1: Fundamentals and classical techniques
  • Fundamentals, configuration space, graph search and lattice planning, RRTs with extensions, planning under differential constraints
• Module 2: Optimal control and MPC-based approaches
  • Path and trajectory control, collision avoidance, MPC for planning and control, uncertainty
• Module 3: Learning-based approaches
  • Reinforcement learning-based methods, imitation learning, learning-based and data-driven MPC, uncertainty modeling and predictive models
• Module 4: Multi-agent planning
  • vehicle routing problems, multi-agent path planning, game-theoretic approaches

Course Organization

The course is designed as a multi-site course to allow participation from the ELLIIT sites, combining focused on-site sessions held in Linköping and Lund with local and distance-based activities. Lectures by the course responsibles and the course participants will be complemented by guest lectures. The course is organized in different modules, where there will be connected reading material (selected papers and book chapters) as well as implementation assignments as a means to study and learn the associated methods. The on-site sessions will, in addition to the lectures, focus on joint discussions of the course material and the implementation assignments. The detailed schedule for the course will be decided together with the participants at the introductory meeting to be held in late October 2026.

Examination

To pass the first part of the course (6 hp), participants must organize one combined lecture and discussion session (approx.\ 60 min), submit all implementation assignments on time, actively participate in course meetings and discussions, and take part in a final oral discussion with the course responsibles. An additional 3 hp can be obtained by completing a course project and presenting it at the project seminar; no written report is required, only self-contained slides need to be submitted.