PHC Brancusi grant: Artificial-Intelligence-Based Optimization for the Stable and Optimal Control of Networked Systems (AICONS)
The optimal operation of communication, energy, transport, and other networks is of paramount importance in today's society, and will certainly become more important in the future. Operating these networks optimally requires the effective control of their component systems. Our project AICONS therefore focuses on the control of general networked systems. We consider both the coordinated behavior of multiple systems having a local view of the network, as well as the networked control of individual systems where new challenges arise from the limitations of the network.
The objective of AICONS is a framework for the control of general nonlinear networked systems, which deals in an integrated fashion with optimality, stability, and computational requirements. This is in contrast to the state of the art, which often only considers stability, and is usually limited to specific classes of systems. Our main innovation is to overhaul optimization and planning algorithms from artificial intelligence to the control of networked systems. We exploit these algorithms' generality and adapt their guarantees on computation and optimality to the networked setting. We develop stability guarantees based on control-theoretic insight, thereby completing the desired framework.
In 2015, the following papers resulting from the project were published or accepted:
- Near-Optimal Strategies for Nonlinear and Uncertain Control Systems
- Planning Methods for the Optimal Control and Performance Certification of General Nonlinear Switched Systems
- Topology-Preserving Flocking of Nonlinear Agents Using Optimistic Planning
AICONS is a Programme Hubert Curien (PHC)-Brancusi cooperation grant with the Research Center in Automatic Control of Nancy (French PI: Constantin Morarescu), CNCS-UEFISCDI contract no. 781/2014 and Campus France grant no. 32610SE.