Speaker: Nikos Athanasopoulos, Queen’s University Belfast

Title: Computation-aware set-based analysis and control.

Abstract: Set-based methods are rich and versatile tools addressing challenges in analysis and decision problems in engineering related to, for example, safety, stability, robustness, performance for dynamical systems. Nevertheless, although the theory is general enough to apply in almost every meaningful problem formulation, a straightforward implementation in analysis and control design inevitably hits computational complexity barriers.  After noting two main methods, we present an alternative approach of computing invariant sets from a computational geometry point of view, changing the shape of polytopic invariant sets and preserve invariance at the same time. The second part of the talk is focused on application-oriented challenges eventually addressed by computing invariant sets and reachability set sequences, related to (i) robotics and autonomous agents (nonlinearities, nonconvex constraints), (ii) scheduling and resource allocation of computing networks (large scale, nonlinear systems) and (iii) cybersecurity (temporal specifications and hybrid systems, state-dependent disturbances).

Short bio: Nikos Athanasopoulos is a Senior Lecturer in Control, in the School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK. His research is in control theory and engineering, with a focus on hybrid systems and set-based methods for cyber-physical systems. He is the recipient of an IKY and a Marie Curie fellowship, is an Associate Editor in Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems and the IEEE UK & Ireland Chapter Chair in Control and Communications, Ireland. He has held postdoctoral positions in Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands, and University of Louvain, Belgium. He obtained his Diploma and PhD from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department in University of Patras, Greece.

We strongly encourage you to attend the seminar in person. You can also connect via Zoom:

https://newnham.zoom.us/j/92544958528?pwd=YS9PcGRnbXBOcStBdStNb3E0SHN1UT09