16:00 - 17:00
5161.0105 (Bernoulliborg)
Title: Feedback system analysis: back to the future
Abstract: Feedback system analysis is the backbone of control theory. While the theory was originally developed in an input-output framework, as an offspring of circuit theory, the state-space formalism has become dominant under the drive of robotics, and, more recently, machine learning. Dissipativity theory has played a crucial role in bridging the two approaches, using state-space representations to make the input output theory algorithmic, at least in the special case of linear time-invariant (LTI) systems. The talk will reflect on the fact that the focus of the input-output theory was on incremental system properties (e.g. incremental gain) whereas the focus of state-space theory is on non-incremental properties. We will discuss why the analysis of incremental properties has disappeared from state-space theory and why this limitation has become a bottleneck of nonlinear control. Finally we will report on current research avenues to bypass state-space representations in an algorithmic input-output analysis of incremental system properties.