Over the next decade, the biggest generator of data is expected to be devices that sense and control the physical world. The explosion of real-time data that is emerging from the physical world requires a rapprochement of areas such as machine learning, control theory, and optimization. While control theory has been firmly rooted in the tradition of model-based design, the availability and scale of data (both temporal and spatial) will require rethinking the foundations of our discipline. From a machine learning perspective, one of the main challenges going forward is to go beyond pattern recognition and address problems in data-driven control and optimization of dynamical processes. Our overall goal is to create a new community of people who think rigorously across the disciplines, ask new questions, and develop the foundations of this new scientific area. We are happy to welcome you to the University of Oxford for the 6th annual L4DC.

We invite submissions of short papers addressing topics including:

• Foundations of learning of dynamics models
• System identification
• Optimization for machine learning
• Data-driven optimization for dynamical systems
• Distributed learning over distributed systems
• Reinforcement learning for physical systems
• Safe reinforcement learning and safe adaptive control
• Statistical learning for dynamical and control systems
• Bridging model-based and learning-based dynamical and control systems
• Physics-constrained learning
• Physical learning in dynamical and control systems applications in robotics, autonomy, biology, energy systems, transportation systems, cognitive systems, neuroscience, etc.

While the conference is open to any topic on the interface between machine learning, control, optimization and related areas, its primary goal is to address scientific and application challenges in real-time physical processes modeled by dynamical or control systems.

Important Dates

• Paper submission deadline: 12 Dec 2023 (23:55 GMT)
• Notification of acceptance: Apr 2024
• Final paper submission: May 2024
• Conference: July 15-17, 2024

Paper submissions

• All papers must be written in English and formatted using the l4dc2024 latex template and style file. Papers must be uploaded in pdf format. The review process is single-blind (author names are visible to reviewers).
• Submissions are limited to 10 pages with unlimited allowance for references. Acknowledgements do not count towards the page limit. If the submitted paper includes an appendix, it should be within the 10-page limit.
• Submissions that are substantially similar to papers that have been previously published, accepted for publication, or submitted in parallel to other peer-reviewed conferences with proceedings or journals may not be submitted to L4DC.
• Reviews and decisions will be based on the submitted version of a paper, although authors may include in their submission links to supplementary material (long proofs, additional experimental results etc.) on arXiv or a personal webpage.
• All accepted papers will be presented as posters at the conference. A selected set of papers deemed particularly exceptional by the program committee will be presented as oral talks.

Further information

• See the conference website at https://l4dc.web.ox.ac.uk 
• Or contact the organisers at l4dc@eng.ox.ac.uk