CSR-EHS: Optimal, Multi-Modal Control of Complex Systems

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The technological frontier and performance barrier for control and management ofmany present-day engineering systems lie in their complexity. Consequently,complexity management has become an essential part of control systems design. Anemerging approach to controlling such systems consists of a decomposition of thecontrol actions into a sequence of modes, each of which is defined for aparticular task, operating point, or data source. The central question is how toschedule the various modes in order to optimize the system's performance.Related questions concern the development of real-time algorithms forperformance improvement and the tradeoff between the size of the mode set andthe system's performance.This project will answer the above questions by casting them in the setting ofoptimal control, by combining techniques from hybrid systems, motion descriptionlanguages, and numerical optimization. This new approach to controlling complexsystems will advance the state of the art of supervisory controller design byproviding effective algorithms for off-line computation of optimal controls, andfor real-time implementation of suboptimal controls.On the technological side, the framework for optimal timing control ofmulti-modal systems has far-reaching implications in a variety of applicationdomains. For instance, optimal scheduling of robotic tasks can be crucial forthe success of autonomous planetary explorations, mine sweeping,search-and-rescue applications, and other military missions. On the educationalside, a new controls curriculum will be developed at the Georgia Institute ofTechnology that combines computer-science techniques with the traditionalapproach to signals and systems.