Murray Wiki - User contributions [en]

Naira Hovakimyan, Oct 2023

2023-10-17T20:36:42Z

Ersindas:

Naira Hovakimyan will visit CDS on 18 Oct 2023 (Wed). If you would like to meet with her, please sign up below.

* 10:45: seminar setup (Monica)
* 11:00: Seminar (121 Annenberg)
* 12:00: Lunch - Richard, John, Eric
* 1:15: Josefine (pick up at Ath)
* 2:00: Ersin (GTL 320)
* 2:30: Max Cohen (GTL 320)
* 3:00: CDS tea
* 3:45: NCS group meeting
* 5:00: depart

<hr>

<center>
Safe Learning in Autonomous Systems

'''Naira Hovakimyan''' 
UIUC
</center>

Abstract: Learning-based control paradigms have seen many success stories with various robots and co-robots in recent years. However, as these robots prepare to enter the real world, operating safely in the presence of imperfect model knowledge and external disturbances is going to be vital to ensure mission success. We introduce a class of distributionally robust adaptive control architectures that ensure robustness to distribution shifts and enable the development of certificates for V&V of learning-enabled systems. An overview of different projects at our lab that build upon this framework will be demonstrated to show different applications.

=== Biography ===

Naira Hovakimyan received her MS degree in Applied Mathematics from Yerevan State University in Armenia. She got her Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. She is currently W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and the Director of AVIATE Center of UIUC. She has co-authored two books, eleven patents and more than 450 refereed publications. She is the 2011 recipient of AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, the 2015 recipient of SWE Achievement Award, the 2017 recipient of IEEE CSS Award for Technical Excellence in Aerospace Controls, and the 2019 recipient of AIAA Pendray Aerospace Literature Award. In 2014 she was awarded the Humboldt prize for her lifetime achievements. She is Fellow of AIAA and IEEE, and senior member of National Academy of Inventors. She is cofounder and chief scientist of Intelinair. Her work was featured in the New York Times, on Fox TV and CNBC.

Naira Hovakimyan, Oct 2023

2023-10-11T00:31:22Z

Ersindas:

Naira Hovakimyan will visit CDS on 18 Oct 2023 (Wed). If you would like to meet with her, please sign up below.

* 9:15: open
* 10:00: open
* 10:45: seminar setup
* 11:00: Seminar (location TBD)
* 12:00: Lunch - Richard
* 1:15: open
* 2:00: Ersin (location TBD)
* 2:30: open
* 3:00: CDS tea
* 3:45: NCS group meeting
* 5:00: depart

<hr>

<center>
Safe Learning in Autonomous Systems

'''Naira Hovakimyan''' 
UIUC
</center>

Abstract: Learning-based control paradigms have seen many success stories with various robots and co-robots in recent years. However, as these robots prepare to enter the real world, operating safely in the presence of imperfect model knowledge and external disturbances is going to be vital to ensure mission success. We introduce a class of distributionally robust adaptive control architectures that ensure robustness to distribution shifts and enable the development of certificates for V&V of learning-enabled systems. An overview of different projects at our lab that build upon this framework will be demonstrated to show different applications.

=== Biography ===

Naira Hovakimyan received her MS degree in Applied Mathematics from Yerevan State University in Armenia. She got her Ph.D. in Physics and Mathematics from the Institute of Applied Mathematics of Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. She is currently W. Grafton and Lillian B. Wilkins Professor of Mechanical Science and Engineering and the Director of AVIATE Center of UIUC. She has co-authored two books, eleven patents and more than 450 refereed publications. She is the 2011 recipient of AIAA Mechanics and Control of Flight Award, the 2015 recipient of SWE Achievement Award, the 2017 recipient of IEEE CSS Award for Technical Excellence in Aerospace Controls, and the 2019 recipient of AIAA Pendray Aerospace Literature Award. In 2014 she was awarded the Humboldt prize for her lifetime achievements. She is Fellow of AIAA and IEEE, and senior member of National Academy of Inventors. She is cofounder and chief scientist of Intelinair. Her work was featured in the New York Times, on Fox TV and CNBC.

Yasmine Marani, 8 Mar 2023

2023-03-06T23:47:48Z

Ersindas: /* 8 Mar 2023 (Wed) */

Yasmine Marani, a PhD student with Eric Feron at KAUST, is going to be visiting Caltech on 8 Mar (Wed). She is working on observer design for nonlinear systems, combining standard control theory methods with learning-based approaches while providing convergence proofs of the whole scheme. She also applies the methods she develops to quadcopters.

== 8 Mar 2023 (Wed) ==
* 9:00 am: Open (only use if other slots are filled)
* 9:45 am: Open (only use if other slots are filled)
* 10:30 am: Open (only use if other slots are filled)
* 11:15 am: Open (only use if other slots are filled)
<hr>
* 1:30 pm: Open (Ersin Das, GTL-218)
* 2:15 pm: Open (add name and location)
* 3:00 pm: CDS Tea (Annenberg, 2nd floor lounge)
* 3:30 pm: Open (add name and location)
* 4:15 pm: Open (add name and location)

Wen-Hua Chen, 4-21 Oct 2022

2022-10-03T16:05:37Z

Ersindas: /* 5 Oct (Wed) */

Professor Wen-Hua Chen from the University of Loughborough will visit Caltech on 4-21 Oct 2022. A schedule for the first few days of his visit is given below. Please feel free to sign up for any open times.

{| border=1
|-
| align=top width=50% |
=== 4 Oct (Tue) ===
* 8:30 am: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
* 9:00 am: Soon-Jo Chung, 235 Guggenheim (including lab tour (CAST & ARCL))
* 9:45 am: Diana Bohler (logistics)
* 10:30 am: Open
* 11:15 am: Apurva (meet outside Richard's office and walk over to Red door)
* 12:00 pm: Lunch with Richard
* 1:15 pm: Houman Owhadi, 201 Steele House
* 2:00 pm: Lijun Chen, 217 Annenberg
* 2:45 pm: Andrew Taylor, 325 Annenberg
* 3:30 pm: Noel Csomay-Shanklin, 325 Annenberg
* 4:15 pm: Open
* 5:00 pm: Done for the day

| align=top width=50% |

=== 5 Oct (Wed) ===

* 9:00 am: Ersin Das, Location: Steele House
* 9:45 am: Open
* 10:30 am: Open
* 11:15 am: Prithvi Akella, (Place TBD)
* 12:00 pm: Lunch
* 1:30 pm: Anima Anandkumar, 316 Annenberg
* 2:15 pm: Josefine Graebener, Location TBD
* 3:00 pm: CDS Tea, Annenberg
* 3:45 pm: Seminar - 121 Annenberg
* 5:00 pm: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
* 6:00 pm: Dinner with NCS group
|}

'''Stability of Optimisation-Based Control: Brief Review and New Results'''

Prof Wen-Hua Chen 
Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering 
Loughborough University

With the increase of the size and the complexity of systems and their performance specifications, it is more difficult to find analytic solutions for a control system as in traditional approaches to give optimal performance. Model Predictive Control (MPC) provides a promising mechanism to realise numerical optimal solutions online to achieve best possible performance. However, establishing stability and other formal properties of this type of optimisation-based control imposes significant challenges. This talk starts with the brief overview of 30 years’ journey in developing stability theory for MPC. It points out that despite all the success, there is still a significant gap between available theoretic tools and practical applications. For example, a terminal cost that covers the optimal cost-to-go is, in general, required to add the cost function in order to ensure stability of a MPC algorithm, but most of MPC used in practical applications does not have a terminal cost (for example, all cases studies in Matlab Nonlinear MPC Toolbox do not have a terminal cost but work well). This talk presents a new approach and development in this area. The stability condition is entirely complementary to the existing terminal based MPC stability theory. Opposite to the existing MPC stability conditions, the new stability conditions cover the terminal cost being less than the optimal cost-to-go including zero terminal cost even negative. The new conditions are established based on a property of a modified stage cost. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the links and differences between the new approach and the existing stability theory. It is hoped that this work would trigger more research into understanding the interaction between optimisation and feedback loops in both the AI and the control community so ensure efficiency and safety of future robotics and autonomous systems.

Dr Wen-Hua Chen holds Professor in Autonomous Vehicles in the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University, UK. Prof. Chen has a considerable experience in control, signal processing and artificial intelligence and their applications in aerospace, automotive and agriculture systems. In the last 15 years, he has been working on the development and application of unmanned aircraft system and intelligent vehicle technologies, spanning autopilots, situational awareness, decision making, verification, remote sensing for precision agriculture and environment monitoring. He is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of IEEE, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. Recently Prof Chen was awarded an EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council) Established Career Fellowship in developing control theory for next generation of control systems to enable high levels of automation such as robotics and autonomous systems.

Wen-Hua Chen, 4-21 Oct 2022

2022-10-01T20:11:54Z

Ersindas: /* 5 Oct (Wed) */

Professor Wen-Hua Chen from the University of Loughborough will visit Caltech on 4-21 Oct 2022. A schedule for the first few days of his visit is given below. Please feel free to sign up for any open times.

{| border=1
|-
| align=top width=50% |
=== 4 Oct (Tue) ===
* 8:30 am: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
* 9:00 am: Soon-Jo Chung, 235 Guggenheim (including lab tour (CAST & ARCL))
* 9:45 am: Open
* 10:30 am: Open
* 11:15 am: Open
* 12:00 pm: Lunch with Richard
* 1:15 pm: Houman Owhadi, 201 Steele House
* 2:00 pm: Open
* 2:45 pm: Open
* 3:30 pm: Open
* 4:15 pm: Open
* 5:00 pm: Done for the day

| align=top width=50% |

=== 5 Oct (Wed) ===

* 9:00 am: Ersin Das, Location: TBD
* 9:45 am: Open
* 10:30 am: Open
* 11:15 am: Prithvi Akella, (Place TBD)
* 12:00 pm: Lunch
* 1:30 pm: Anima Anandkumar, 316 Annenberg
* 2:15 pm: Josefine Graebener, Location TBD
* 3:00 pm: CDS Tea, Annenberg
* 3:45 pm: Seminar - 121 Annenberg
* 5:00 pm: Richard Murray, 109 Steele Lab
* 6:00 pm: Dinner with NCS group
|}

'''Stability of Optimisation-Based Control: Brief Review and New Results'''

Prof Wen-Hua Chen 
Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering 
Loughborough University

With the increase of the size and the complexity of systems and their performance specifications, it is more difficult to find analytic solutions for a control system as in traditional approaches to give optimal performance. Model Predictive Control (MPC) provides a promising mechanism to realise numerical optimal solutions online to achieve best possible performance. However, establishing stability and other formal properties of this type of optimisation-based control imposes significant challenges. This talk starts with the brief overview of 30 years’ journey in developing stability theory for MPC. It points out that despite all the success, there is still a significant gap between available theoretic tools and practical applications. For example, a terminal cost that covers the optimal cost-to-go is, in general, required to add the cost function in order to ensure stability of a MPC algorithm, but most of MPC used in practical applications does not have a terminal cost (for example, all cases studies in Matlab Nonlinear MPC Toolbox do not have a terminal cost but work well). This talk presents a new approach and development in this area. The stability condition is entirely complementary to the existing terminal based MPC stability theory. Opposite to the existing MPC stability conditions, the new stability conditions cover the terminal cost being less than the optimal cost-to-go including zero terminal cost even negative. The new conditions are established based on a property of a modified stage cost. Numerical results are presented to illustrate the links and differences between the new approach and the existing stability theory. It is hoped that this work would trigger more research into understanding the interaction between optimisation and feedback loops in both the AI and the control community so ensure efficiency and safety of future robotics and autonomous systems.

Dr Wen-Hua Chen holds Professor in Autonomous Vehicles in the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering at Loughborough University, UK. Prof. Chen has a considerable experience in control, signal processing and artificial intelligence and their applications in aerospace, automotive and agriculture systems. In the last 15 years, he has been working on the development and application of unmanned aircraft system and intelligent vehicle technologies, spanning autopilots, situational awareness, decision making, verification, remote sensing for precision agriculture and environment monitoring. He is a Chartered Engineer, and a Fellow of IEEE, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Engineering and Technology, UK. Recently Prof Chen was awarded an EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Science Research Council) Established Career Fellowship in developing control theory for next generation of control systems to enable high levels of automation such as robotics and autonomous systems.