Hierarchical Decomposition of Nonlinear Dynamics and Control for System Identification and Policy Distillation

The control of nonlinear dynamical systems remains a major challenge for autonomous agents. Current trends in reinforcement learning (RL) focus on complex representations of dynamics and policies, which have yielded impressive results in solving a variety of hard control tasks. However, this new sophistication and extremely over-parameterized models have come with the cost of an overall reduction in our ability to interpret the resulting policies. In this paper, we take inspiration from the control community and apply the principles of hybrid switching systems in order to break down complex dynamics into simpler components. We exploit the rich representational power of probabilistic graphical models and derive an expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm for learning a sequence model to capture the temporal structure of the data and automatically decompose nonlinear dynamics into stochastic switching linear dynamical systems. Moreover, we show how this framework of switching models enables extracting hierarchies of Markovian and auto-regressive locally linear controllers from nonlinear experts in an imitation learning scenario.Comment: 2nd Annual Conference on Learning for Dynamics and Contro

A stochastic surrogate model for time-variant reliability analysis of flexible multibody system

The dynamic model of the flexible multibody systems (FMS) is usually the differential equations with time-variant, high nonlinear and strong coupling characteristics. The traditional reliability models are inefficient to solve these problems. And the reliability model is poor in accuracy and computational efficiency. Based on this point, a new stochastic surrogate model for time-variant reliability analysis of FMS is proposed. Combined model order reduction with generalized polynomial chaos, the stochastic surrogate model is established and the statistical characteristics of system responses are obtained. The calculation method of kinematic time-variant reliability is given. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is verified by a rotating flexible beam. The results show that this method has high computational accuracy compared with Monte Carlo method

Tensor Computation: A New Framework for High-Dimensional Problems in EDA

Many critical EDA problems suffer from the curse of dimensionality, i.e. the very fast-scaling computational burden produced by large number of parameters and/or unknown variables. This phenomenon may be caused by multiple spatial or temporal factors (e.g. 3-D field solvers discretizations and multi-rate circuit simulation), nonlinearity of devices and circuits, large number of design or optimization parameters (e.g. full-chip routing/placement and circuit sizing), or extensive process variations (e.g. variability/reliability analysis and design for manufacturability). The computational challenges generated by such high dimensional problems are generally hard to handle efficiently with traditional EDA core algorithms that are based on matrix and vector computation. This paper presents "tensor computation" as an alternative general framework for the development of efficient EDA algorithms and tools. A tensor is a high-dimensional generalization of a matrix and a vector, and is a natural choice for both storing and solving efficiently high-dimensional EDA problems. This paper gives a basic tutorial on tensors, demonstrates some recent examples of EDA applications (e.g., nonlinear circuit modeling and high-dimensional uncertainty quantification), and suggests further open EDA problems where the use of tensor computation could be of advantage.Comment: 14 figures. Accepted by IEEE Trans. CAD of Integrated Circuits and System

Noise Response Data Reveal Novel Controllability Gramian for Nonlinear Network Dynamics

Control of nonlinear large-scale dynamical networks, e.g., collective behavior of agents interacting via a scale-free connection topology, is a central problem in many scientific and engineering fields. For the linear version of this problem, the so-called controllability Gramian has played an important role to quantify how effectively the dynamical states are reachable by a suitable driving input. In this paper, we first extend the notion of the controllability Gramian to nonlinear dynamics in terms of the Gibbs distribution. Next, we show that, when the networks are open to environmental noise, the newly defined Gramian is equal to the covariance matrix associated with randomly excited, but uncontrolled, dynamical state trajectories. This fact theoretically justifies a simple Monte Carlo simulation that can extract effectively controllable subdynamics in nonlinear complex networks. In addition, the result provides a novel insight into the relationship between controllability and statistical mechanics.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Scientific Report

Model order reduction for stochastic dynamical systems with continuous symmetries

Stochastic dynamical systems with continuous symmetries arise commonly in nature and often give rise to coherent spatio-temporal patterns. However, because of their random locations, these patterns are not well captured by current order reduction techniques and a large number of modes is typically necessary for an accurate solution. In this work, we introduce a new methodology for efficient order reduction of such systems by combining (i) the method of slices, a symmetry reduction tool, with (ii) any standard order reduction technique, resulting in efficient mixed symmetry-dimensionality reduction schemes. In particular, using the Dynamically Orthogonal (DO) equations in the second step, we obtain a novel nonlinear Symmetry-reduced Dynamically Orthogonal (SDO) scheme. We demonstrate the performance of the SDO scheme on stochastic solutions of the 1D Korteweg-de Vries and 2D Navier-Stokes equations.Comment: Minor revision

Data-based mechanistic modelling, forecasting, and control.

This article briefly reviews the main aspects of the generic data based mechanistic (DBM) approach to modeling stochastic dynamic systems and shown how it is being applied to the analysis, forecasting, and control of environmental and agricultural systems. The advantages of this inductive approach to modeling lie in its wide range of applicability. It can be used to model linear, nonstationary, and nonlinear stochastic systems, and its exploitation of recursive estimation means that the modeling results are useful for both online and offline applications. To demonstrate the practical utility of the various methodological tools that underpin the DBM approach, the article also outlines several typical, practical examples in the area of environmental and agricultural systems analysis, where DBM models have formed the basis for simulation model reduction, control system design, and forecastin