Uncertainty Randomization in Control Systems

Prof. Dr. Roberto Tempo

CNR-IEIIT

Politecnico di Torino

Italy

http://staff.polito.it/roberto.tempo/

It is well-known that uncertainty leads to a significant performance degradation of control systems. At the beginning of this lecture, we illustrate this fact in the context of Model Predictive Control and discuss two alternative approaches: robust and stochastic. Subsequently, we provide a perspective of randomized techniques to handle uncertain stochastic systems. In particular, we introduce the notion of sample complexity, demonstrate its key role in feedback systems, and study related probabilistic bounds. Regarding control design, we develop a novel robust optimization approach over networks, where multiple processors are distributed among different nodes. The resulting parallel randomized algorithms solve the robust optimization problem very effectively, in particular for control systems consisting of a very large number of design variables.

Roberto Tempo  is currently Director of Research of Systems and Computer Engineering at CNR-IEIIT, Politecnico di Torino, Italy. He has held visiting positions at Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Kyoto University, The University of Tokyo, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, German Aerospace Research Organization in Oberpfaffenhofen and Columbia University in New York. His research activities are focused on the analysis and design of complex systems with uncertainty, and various applications within information technology. On these topics, he has published more than 180 research papers in international journals, books and conferences. He is also a co-author of the book “Randomized Algorithms for Analysis and Control of Uncertain Systems, with Applications,” Springer-Verlag, London, published in two editions in 2005 and 2013.

Dr. Tempo is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the IFAC. He is a recipient of the IFAC Outstanding Paper Prize Award for a paper published in Automatica and of the Distinguished Member Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society. He is a Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences, Institute of Bologna, Italy, Class Engineering Sciences.

In 2010 Dr. Tempo was President of the IEEE Control Systems Society. He is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief of Automatica. He has been Editor for Technical Notes and Correspondence of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control in 2005-2009 and a Senior Editor of the same journal in 2011-2014. He is a member of the Advisory Board of Systems & Control: Foundations & Applications, Birkhauser. He was General Co-Chair for the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Florence, Italy, 2013 and Program Chair of the first joint IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and  European Control Conference, Seville, Spain, 2005.