On general systems with network-enhanced complexities

In recent years, the study of networked control systems (NCSs) has gradually become an active research area due to the advantages of using networked media in many aspects such as the ease of maintenance and installation, the large flexibility and the low cost. It is well known that the devices in networks are mutually connected via communication cables that are of limited capacity. Therefore, some network-induced phenomena have inevitably emerged in the areas of signal processing and control engineering. These phenomena include, but are not limited to, network-induced communication delays, missing data, signal quantization, saturations, and channel fading. It is of great importance to understand how these phenomena influence the closed-loop stability and performance properties

The stability of a graph partition: A dynamics-based framework for community detection

Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the analysis of complex networks, facilitated by the availability of relational data and the increasingly powerful computational resources that can be employed for their analysis. Naturally, the study of real-world systems leads to highly complex networks and a current challenge is to extract intelligible, simplified descriptions from the network in terms of relevant subgraphs, which can provide insight into the structure and function of the overall system. Sparked by seminal work by Newman and Girvan, an interesting line of research has been devoted to investigating modular community structure in networks, revitalising the classic problem of graph partitioning. However, modular or community structure in networks has notoriously evaded rigorous definition. The most accepted notion of community is perhaps that of a group of elements which exhibit a stronger level of interaction within themselves than with the elements outside the community. This concept has resulted in a plethora of computational methods and heuristics for community detection. Nevertheless a firm theoretical understanding of most of these methods, in terms of how they operate and what they are supposed to detect, is still lacking to date. Here, we will develop a dynamical perspective towards community detection enabling us to define a measure named the stability of a graph partition. It will be shown that a number of previously ad-hoc defined heuristics for community detection can be seen as particular cases of our method providing us with a dynamic reinterpretation of those measures. Our dynamics-based approach thus serves as a unifying framework to gain a deeper understanding of different aspects and problems associated with community detection and allows us to propose new dynamically-inspired criteria for community structure.Comment: 3 figures; published as book chapte

Delay-Based Controller Design for Continuous-Time and Hybrid Applications

Motivated by the availability of different types of delays in embedded systems and biological circuits, the objective of this work is to study the benefits that delay can provide in simplifying the implementation of controllers for continuous-time systems. Given a continuous-time linear time-invariant (LTI) controller, we propose three methods to approximate this controller arbitrarily precisely by a simple controller composed of delay blocks, a few integrators and possibly a unity feedback. Different problems associated with the approximation procedures, such as finding the optimal number of delay blocks or studying the robustness of the designed controller with respect to delay values, are then investigated. We also study the design of an LTI continuous-time controller satisfying given control objectives whose delay-based implementation needs the least number of delay blocks. A direct application of this work is in the sampled-data control of a real-time embedded system, where the sampling frequency is relatively high and/or the output of the system is sampled irregularly. Based on our results on delay-based controller design, we propose a digital-control scheme that can implement every continuous-time stabilizing (LTI) controller. Unlike a typical sampled-data controller, the hybrid controller introduced here -— consisting of an ideal sampler, a digital controller, a number of modified second-order holds and possibly a unity feedback -— is robust to sampling jitter and can operate at arbitrarily high sampling frequencies without requiring expensive, high-precision computation

Spectral methods for the wave equation in second-order form

Current spectral simulations of Einstein's equations require writing the equations in first-order form, potentially introducing instabilities and inefficiencies. We present a new penalty method for pseudo-spectral evolutions of second order in space wave equations. The penalties are constructed as functions of Legendre polynomials and are added to the equations of motion everywhere, not only on the boundaries. Using energy methods, we prove semi-discrete stability of the new method for the scalar wave equation in flat space and show how it can be applied to the scalar wave on a curved background. Numerical results demonstrating stability and convergence for multi-domain second-order scalar wave evolutions are also presented. This work provides a foundation for treating Einstein's equations directly in second-order form by spectral methods.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

Robust H∞ filtering for a class of nonlinear networked systems with multiple stochastic communication delays and packet dropouts

Copyright [2010] IEEE. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of Brunel University's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.In this paper, the robust H∞ filtering problem is studied for a class of uncertain nonlinear networked systems with both multiple stochastic time-varying communication delays and multiple packet dropouts. A sequence of random variables, all of which are mutually independent but obey Bernoulli distribution, are introduced to account for the randomly occurred communication delays. The packet dropout phenomenon occurs in a random way and the occurrence probability for each sensor is governed by an individual random variable satisfying a certain probabilistic distribution in the interval. The discrete-time system under consideration is also subject to parameter uncertainties, state-dependent stochastic disturbances and sector-bounded nonlinearities. We aim to design a linear full-order filter such that the estimation error converges to zero exponentially in the mean square while the disturbance rejection attenuation is constrained to a give level by means of the H∞ performance index. Intensive stochastic analysis is carried out to obtain sufficient conditions for ensuring the exponential stability as well as prescribed H∞ performance for the overall filtering error dynamics, in the presence of random delays, random dropouts, nonlinearities, and the parameter uncertainties. These conditions are characterized in terms of the feasibility of a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), and then the explicit expression is given for the desired filter parameters. Simulation results are employed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed filter design technique in this paper.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the U.K. under Grant GR/S27658/01, the Royal Society of the U.K., the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grant 60825303, 60834003, 973 Project under Grant 2009CB320600, Fok Ying Tung Education Foundation under Grant 111064, and the Youth Science Fund of Heilongjiang Province under Grant QC2009C63

Fast multi-dimensional scattered data approximation with Neumann boundary conditions

An important problem in applications is the approximation of a function $f$ from a finite set of randomly scattered data $f(x_j)$. A common and powerful approach is to construct a trigonometric least squares approximation based on the set of exponentials $\{e^{2\pi i kx}\}$. This leads to fast numerical algorithms, but suffers from disturbing boundary effects due to the underlying periodicity assumption on the data, an assumption that is rarely satisfied in practice. To overcome this drawback we impose Neumann boundary conditions on the data. This implies the use of cosine polynomials $\cos (\pi kx)$ as basis functions. We show that scattered data approximation using cosine polynomials leads to a least squares problem involving certain Toeplitz+Hankel matrices. We derive estimates on the condition number of these matrices. Unlike other Toeplitz+Hankel matrices, the Toeplitz+Hankel matrices arising in our context cannot be diagonalized by the discrete cosine transform, but they still allow a fast matrix-vector multiplication via DCT which gives rise to fast conjugate gradient type algorithms. We show how the results can be generalized to higher dimensions. Finally we demonstrate the performance of the proposed method by applying it to a two-dimensional geophysical scattered data problem

Finite-region boundedness and stabilization for 2D continuous-discrete systems in Roesser model

This paper investigates the finite-region boundedness (FRB) and stabilization problems for two-dimensional continuous-discrete linear Roesser models subject to two kinds of disturbances. For two-dimensional continuous-discrete system, we first put forward the concepts of finite-region stability and FRB. Then, by establishing special recursive formulas, sufficient conditions of FRB for two-dimensional continuous-discrete systems with two kinds of disturbances are formulated. Furthermore, we analyze the finite-region stabilization issues for the corresponding two-dimensional continuous-discrete systems and give generic sufficient conditions and sufficient conditions that can be verified by linear matrix inequalities for designing the state feedback controllers which ensure the closed-loop systems FRB. Finally, viable experimental results are demonstrated by illustrative examples

A Survey on Multisensor Fusion and Consensus Filtering for Sensor Networks

Multisensor fusion and consensus filtering are two fascinating subjects in the research of sensor networks. In this survey, we will cover both classic results and recent advances developed in these two topics. First, we recall some important results in the development ofmultisensor fusion technology. Particularly, we pay great attention to the fusion with unknown correlations, which ubiquitously exist in most of distributed filtering problems. Next, we give a systematic review on several widely used consensus filtering approaches. Furthermore, some latest progress on multisensor fusion and consensus filtering is also presented. Finally, conclusions are drawn and several potential future research directions are outlined.the Royal Society of the UK, the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61329301, 61374039, 61304010, 11301118, and 61573246, the Hujiang Foundation of China under Grants C14002 and D15009, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany, and the Innovation Fund Project for Graduate Student of Shanghai under Grant JWCXSL140