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We describe the design of a custom crowbar circuit that quickly removes power when a programmable current threshold is exceeded. This protects devices from permanent damage during single event latchup/burnout tests.
This letter reveals a fundamental limitation of passivity-based distributed stability analysis in power systems. Under the standard formulation, passivity certification inherently imposes a relative-degree compatibility constraint that excludes many high-fidelity inverter dynamic models (e.g., those that include electromagnetic transients). Potential extensions of passivity frameworks are discussed to break this limitation.
We prove a non-asymptotic central limit theorem for vector-valued martingale differences using Stein's method, and use Poisson's equation to extend the result to functions of Markov Chains. We then show that these results can be applied to establish a non-asymptotic central limit theorem for Temporal Difference (TD) learning with averaging.
This article addresses the problem of designing neural feedback controllers for unknown nonlinear systems. We propose an indirect data-driven framework that uses offline data to identify the system dynamics, upon which a neural feedback controller and a neural Lyapunov function are jointly synthesized. Input constraints are enforced by integrating a hard-saturation structure into the controller architecture. Robust synthesis conditions are derived to account for data perturbations during identification. Formal stability is certified by combining SMT verification with local Lyapunov analysis near the equilibrium. Numerical examples validate the effectiveness of the proposed framework.
Recent work established sufficient and necessary barrier-like conditions for infinite-horizon reach-avoid verification of stochastic discrete-time systems from a single initial state. Whether such a converse characterization extends to a set of initial states, however, remains open. In this paper, we answer this question affirmatively for compact initial sets. We consider a uniform reach-avoid specification requiring the reach-avoid probability to exceed a prescribed threshold for every initial state in a compact set. Under appropriate assumptions, including continuous system transitions, together with a strict uniform probability margin, we extend the pointwise converse characterization to the uniform setting.
Enforcing stochastic state constraints over the full prediction horizon in Model Predictive Control (MPC) can be computationally demanding. Here we study stochastic MPC without terminal ingredients in which chance constraints are enforced only over a shorter constraint horizon. Using stochastic relaxed dynamic programming, we derive an explicit upper bound on the average expected closed-loop cost that depends on both prediction and constraint horizons. For linear quadratic problems with affine chance constraints and bounded uniform disturbances, we provide a deterministic reformulation via coordinate transformation and constraint tightening. Simulations illustrate the trade-off between computational effort and performance.
Communication delays are inherent in networked control systems and may significantly affect closed-loop performance. This paper investigates the impact of external perturbations in observer-based linear systems with delayed measurements and control signals using the output-to-output gain (OOG) framework. By employing dissipativity theory and Lyapunov--Krasovskii functionals, delay-dependent linear matrix inequality conditions are derived that provide explicit upper bounds on the OOG for systems with independent delays in measurement and actuation channels. In addition, two special classes of constant-delay systems are considered: Padé-approximated systems and finite-dimension reducible systems. Numerical examples illustrate the applicability of the proposed approaches
This paper investigates the distributed optimal consensus control problem of constrained heterogeneous multi-agent systems within a model predictive control (MPC) scheme. Both the control input sequence and the dynamically feasible consensus equilibrium are optimized simultaneously within the proposed MPC framework to improve consensus performance, yielding a coupled constrained optimization problem at each prediction time. A distributed primal--dual algorithm is developed to solve the resulting optimization problem, and locally verifiable conditions are derived to guarantee its convergence. Furthermore, sufficient terminal conditions are established for the proposed MPC framework to guarantee the recursive feasibility and asymptotic consensus of the closed-loop heterogeneous multi-agent systems. Finally, numerical simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
This paper studies the class of Bayesian tracking filters for which the probability generating functional of the joint target-measurement process can be derived from the statistical assumptions that define the problem. The class includes filters for labeled and unlabeled targets, as well as hybrid filters in which both labeled and unlabeled targets are present. New results include the probability generating functional for interval filtering of target trajectories for both labeled an unlabeled targets, and a novel method for computing the probability generating function of measurement-to-target assignment probabilities. Probability generating functionals give exact expressions for calculating the importance weights in particle filter implementations. Low computational complexity approximations to the particle weights are derived from the probability generating functionals via the saddle point method.
We introduce new notions of controllability and observability for networked linear time-invariant (LTI) systems based on $σ$-semistability of quiver representations. Utilizing King's criterion for $σ$-semistability, we define a network generalization of the Kalman decomposition for networked LTI systems, which systematically decomposes the local and interconnection dynamics while respecting the underlying network structure. Furthermore, we present efficient algorithms for deciding the proposed controllability and observability of a given networked LTI system and for finding the Kalman-type decomposition. We also show efficient algorithms for deciding the $σ$-semistability of representations of acyclic quivers with self-loops if the weight $σ$ has the same sign for all vertices with self-loops. Such quiver representations and weights arise from networked LTI systems.
An operator--theoretic formulation is developed for the synthesis of parameter-dependent controllers and observers for the Vlasov--Maxwell system. The linearized dynamics are modeled as a non-autonomous evolution system whose generators depend on measurable plasma quantities. Well-posedness of the associated evolution family is established together with uniform growth bounds. Parameter-dependent Lyapunov operators yield operator differential LMIs ensuring uniform exponential stability and observer convergence. An $H_\infty$ extension provides disturbance attenuation conditions consistent with the intrinsic energy structure of the coupled Vlasov--Maxwell equations. Galerkin projections lead to finite-dimensional LMIs consistent with the operator inequalities, enabling reliable numerical synthesis while preserving the analytical structure of the original model. Numerical results on a reduced Vlasov--Maxwell benchmark confirm the predicted convergence properties.
Backup control barrier functions (bCBFs) enforce safety for input-constrained nonlinear systems using a pre-certified backup set and controller, but their performance depends strongly on this prescribed pair. This letter develops a constructive method for synthesizing a less conservative backup pair via finite horizon sum-of-squares (SOS) backward reachability. Starting from an initial backup set, we compute an SOS-certified finite horizon backward reachable set and controller that satisfy safety and input constraints while steering trajectories to the original backup set. We then provide conditions under which this certified set becomes a valid backup set for a piecewise backup controller. The resulting backup pair is integrated into the bCBF framework to certify larger safe sets.
The paper introduces a successive backstepping observer design for strictly feedforward parabolic PDE-ODE systems, in which the coupling structure determines the order of error stabilization and the corresponding transformations. First, a transformation based on a virtual measurement stabilizes the ODE observer error subsystem, which is most distal from the measurement, while decoupling it from the PDE error state. Second, a Volterra integral transformation is employed to stabilize the PDE error subsystem and to map the overall error dynamics into a cascade of exponentially stable ODE and PDE subsystems. The design is shown to be dual to a recently proposed multi-step state feedback design for parabolic PDE-ODE systems in strict feedback form, thus explaining the structure of the presented observer design.
In this paper, constrained parameter update laws for adaptive control are developed using barrier constraints. An interpretation of the parameter update law from a constrained optimization problem, in which a regularized Barrier saddle function is formulated to incorporate parameter constraints using inverse and logarithmic barrier functions from interior-point methods. The resulting constrained update law is integrated with an adaptive trajectory tracking controller, enabling online learning of the unknown system model parameters. Forward invariance of the parameter estimate is established and Lyapunov stability of the closed-loop system with the constrained parameter update law is derived. The effectiveness of the proposed constrained adaptive control law is demonstrated through simulations, which validate its ability to maintain parameter estimates within prescribed bounds while ensuring convergence to the true parameter values and achieving steady state tracking performance.
Designing safe controllers is crucial and notoriously challenging for input-constrained safety-critical control systems. Backup control barrier functions offer an approach for the construction of safe controllers online by considering the flow of the system under a backup controller. However, in the presence of model uncertainties, the flow cannot be accurately computed, making this method insufficient for safety assurance. To tackle this shortcoming, we integrate backup control barrier functions with uncertainty estimators and calculate the flow under a reconstruction of the model uncertainty while refining this estimate over time. We prove that the controllers resulting from the proposed Uncertainty Estimator Backup Control Barrier Function (UE-bCBF) approach guarantee safety, are robust to unknown disturbances, and satisfy input constraints.
Belief propagation (BP) is widely used for data association (DA) in target tracking. Existing convergence analyses of BP for DA address only the two-way correspondence between targets and measurements, where each target generates at most one measurement per scan. Multipath DA (MPDA) allows a single target to produce multiple measurements via distinct propagation paths, creating a three-way correspondence among targets, paths, and measurements, for which a complete convergence proof has not yet been provided. We provide such a proof for the BP updates in MPDA, establishing convergence to a unique fixed point. Simulations illustrate the convergence behavior of BP in MPDA and demonstrate a favorable accuracy--efficiency trade-off relative to both single-scan and two-scan variants of the multiple-detection multiple-hypothesis tracker.
Electric Vehicle (EV) fast charging stations require forecasting techniques both at the single charger level and aggregated level. While for the latter several models exist, forecasting individual EV charging profiles is still underexplored in literature. However, such methods may be potentially used by battery-aware scheduling, leading to a more granular update of the charging station aggregated forecast and provide a more accurate estimation of EVs departure times. Nonetheless, the variable extent of available information in time and in different settings could jeopardize these benefits. For this reason, we propose a hybrid and lightweight method to estimate the EV charging profile before and during the charging process. Besides evaluating this method on multiple EVs from a public dataset, we also assess the impact of different level of information in the time transposition of the charging profile.
Reconfigurable Intelligent Surfaces (RISs) are an attractive technology for Millimeter Wave (mmWave) communications due to their ability to passively reflect incident signals. However, current implementations of RIS rely on performing computationally-intensive algorithms offline to generate phase masks, which are stored as a codebook on the embedded microcontroller on the RIS. The codebook size is restricted by the embedded microcontroller's storage capacity, which limits the ability of the RIS to adapt to evolving channel conditions and deployment scenarios. In this demo, we showcase an Machine Learning (ML)-based solution for dynamically generating new phase masks during runtime. Our approach leverages a ML model deployed on the microcontroller for approximating the output of a phase mask generation algorithm, responding to new inputs while remaining smaller than a codebook.