International Conference: Perspectives and Future Directions in Systems and Control Theory

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This award supports travel for participants in a Conference on Perspectives and Future Directions in Systems and Control Theory, to take place at Rutgers University, NJ, May 23-27, 2011. A primary goal of this conference is to bring together leaders and junior researchers in the field of control theory, in order to exchange ideas and results contrasting different theoretical approaches, and to explore and discuss emerging application areas such as systems biology and networks. Expository talks, technical presentations, and panel discussions will provide opportunities for fostering collaborations among researchers working in various different subfields, as well as for junior researchers, postdocs, and graduate students interested in system and control theory to interact with the established control theory community. The conference will cover a variety of topics including nonlinear stability analysis, construction of feedback mechanisms, systems with impulses, networked systems, control with communication constraints, monotone systems, graph-theoretic approaches to biological networks, and synchronization of interconnected systems. Control systems and feedback loops are ubiquitous in engineering, in areas such as aerospace control, manufacturing and robotics, active damping, climate control of buildings, process control in chemical plants, electrical power systems, bioengineering, consumer products, and active suspensions, automatic braking systems, and engine timing in the automobile industry. One finds control and feedback in nature, as well, for example in the homeostatic mechanisms that allow organisms to finely tune their internal variables such as temperature, pressure, or chemical levels. The mathematical theory of control formulates the basic theoretical principles and provides tools to study problems in these fields. The conference will highlight the interplay between theory and applications, will review some of the main past achievements in the field, and will lead to discussions of future research directions.