Feedback Networks

David J. Hill
Federation Fellow
Department of Information Engineering
Research School of Information Sciences and Engineering
The Australian National University

The field of systems and control has gone through stages based around focus on preferred models for systems and appropriate structures for controllers, including linear systems and state variable feedback, time-varying parametric systems and adaptive control, nonlinear systems and optimal control  and so on. However, important control tasks in living systems and modern infrastructure technology actually take the form of systems with network structure controlled by distributed control, with switching, time-delays and other complexities, i.e. control of networks by networks or feedback networks. Examples in engineering include power grids, road traffic control and Internet congestion control. This model opens up a plethora of new systems and control science questions, which are being studied by separate communities in science and engineering.

This seminar will describe recent work in this area mainly focussing on work in the Lab for Networks and Control at ANU. The emphasis is on the role of structure, i.e. the various graphs in the networks (system, sensing and controller), stability-related questions and self-organising mechanisms for control.