Prof. Dr. ing. Moritz Diehl – Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies

Prof. Dr. ing. Moritz Diehl

University of Freiburg
Mathematics and system optimization

Senior Fellow
FRIAS Project Group “Agrivoltaics”

October 2025 – December 2026

Website

ORCID ID

E-Mail: moritz.diehl@imtek.uni-freiburg.de

Last Update: 20.10.2025

Curriculum Vitae

Moritz Diehl was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1971. He studied physics and mathematics at Heidelberg and Cambridge University from 1993-1999, and received his Ph.D. degree from Heidelberg University in 2001, at the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing. From 2006 to 2013, he was a professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering, KU Leuven University Belgium, and served as the Principal Investigator of KU Leuven’s Optimization in Engineering Center OPTEC. In 2013 he moved to the University of Freiburg, Germany, where he heads the Systems Control and Optimization Laboratory, in the Department of Microsystems Engineering (IMTEK), and is also affiliated to the Department of Mathematics. His research interests are in optimization and control, spanning from numerical method development to applications in different branches of engineering, with a focus on embedded and on renewable energy systems.

Selected Publications

A. Nurkanović, M. Sperl, S. Albrecht, M. Diehl, Finite elements with switch detection for direct optimal control of nonsmooth systems. Numerische Mathematik, 1-48, 2024
A. Nurkanović, T. Sartor, S. Albrecht, M. Diehl, A Time-Freezing Approach for Numerical Optimal Control of Nonsmooth Differential Equations with State Jumps, IEEE Control Systems Letters, 2021 (received the Outstanding L-CSS Paper Award at CDC 2022)
R. Verschueren, G. Frison, D. Kouzoupis, J. Frey, N. van Duijkeren, A. Zanelli, B. Novoselnik, T. Albin, R. Quirynen, M. Diehl, acados—a modular open-source framework for fast embedded optimal control, Mathematical Programming Computation, 14(1):147-83, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12532-021-00208- 8
J.A.E. Andersson, J. Gillis, G. Horn, JB. Rawlings, M. Diehl, CasADi: a software framework for nonlinear optimization and optimal control, Mathematical Programming Computation 11 (1), 1-36, 2019, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12532-018-0139-4
J.B. Rawlings, D.Q. Mayne, M. Diehl, Model Predictive Control: Theory, Computation, and Design (2nd Edition), Nob Hill Publishing, 2017

FRIAS Project

Project Group “Agrivoltaics.”

The Agri-Photovoltaics Project Group at the University of Freiburg advances Agri-PV as a key technology for sustainable land use: solar generation and farming co-located on the same plots to boost land productivity and climate resilience. Our interdisciplinary approach links field insights, modeling, and techno-economic analysis with social-science work on adoption, governance, and value chains. In doing so, we contribute to core UN goals—climate-resilient agriculture (SDG 2), efficient water use (SDG 6), clean energy (SDG 7), climate action (SDG 13), and responsible consumption (SDG 12). We aim to strengthen collaboration across the university, build international visibility, and deepen research capacity—complementing the application-oriented activities of Fraunhofer ISE.