Controllability of Discontinuous Systems

This report presents an approach to the local controllability problem for a discontinuous system. The approach is based on a concept of tangent vector field to a generalized dynamic system, which makes possible the differential geometry tools to be applied in the discontinuous case. Sufficient controllability conditions are derived

Speculating About Mountains

∗Partially supported by Grant MM 409/94 of the Mininstry of Education, Science and Technology, Bulgaria. ∗∗Partially supported by Grants MM 521/95, MM 442/94 of the Mininstry of Education, Science and Technology, Bulgaria.The definition of the weak slope of continuous functions introduced by Degiovanni and Marzocchi (cf. [8]) and its interrelation with the notion “steepness” of locally Lipschitz functions are discussed. A deformation lemma and a mountain pass theorem for usco mappings are proved. The relation between these results and the respective ones for lower semicontinuous functions (cf. [7]) is considered

Mini Max Wallpaper

Mini Max company formulated a problem for the automatic calculation of the number of wallpaper rolls necessary for decorating a room with wallpaper. The final goal is the development of a web-based calculator open for use to both Mini Max staff and the general public. We propose an approach for reducing the studied problem to the one-dimensional cutting-stock problem. We show this in details for the case of plain wallpapers as well as for the case of patterned wallpapers with straight match. The one-dimensional cutting-stock problem can be formulated as a linear integer programming problem. We develop an approach for calculating the needed number of wallpapers for relatively small problems, create an algorithm in a suitable graphical interface and make different tests. The tests show the efficiency of the proposed approach compared with the existent (available) wallpapers’ calculators

Apar-T: code, validation, and physical interpretation of particle-in-cell results

We present the parallel particle-in-cell (PIC) code Apar-T and, more importantly, address the fundamental question of the relations between the PIC model, the Vlasov-Maxwell theory, and real plasmas. First, we present four validation tests: spectra from simulations of thermal plasmas, linear growth rates of the relativistic tearing instability and of the filamentation instability, and non-linear filamentation merging phase. For the filamentation instability we show that the effective growth rates measured on the total energy can differ by more than 50% from the linear cold predictions and from the fastest modes of the simulation. Second, we detail a new method for initial loading of Maxwell-J\"uttner particle distributions with relativistic bulk velocity and relativistic temperature, and explain why the traditional method with individual particle boosting fails. Third, we scrutinize the question of what description of physical plasmas is obtained by PIC models. These models rely on two building blocks: coarse-graining, i.e., grouping of the order of p~10^10 real particles into a single computer superparticle, and field storage on a grid with its subsequent finite superparticle size. We introduce the notion of coarse-graining dependent quantities, i.e., quantities depending on p. They derive from the PIC plasma parameter Lambda^{PIC}, which we show to scale as 1/p. We explore two implications. One is that PIC collision- and fluctuation-induced thermalization times are expected to scale with the number of superparticles per grid cell, and thus to be a factor p~10^10 smaller than in real plasmas. The other is that the level of electric field fluctuations scales as 1/Lambda^{PIC} ~ p. We provide a corresponding exact expression. Fourth, we compare the Vlasov-Maxwell theory, which describes a phase-space fluid with infinite Lambda, to the PIC model and its relatively small Lambda.Comment: 24 pages, 14 figures, accepted in Astronomy & Astrophysic

A sufficient condition for small-time local attainability of a set

The notion of small-time local attainability (STLA) of a closed set with respect to a nonlinear control system is discussed and a new sufficient STLA condition is proved

High-order variations and small-time local attainability

We study the problem of small-time local attainability (STLA) of a closed set. For doing this, we introduce a new concept of variations of the reachable set, well adapted to a given closed set and prove a new attainability result

Nonlinear stabilizing control of an uncertain bioprocess model

In this paper we consider a nonlinear model of a biological wastewater treatment process, based on two microbial populations and two substrates. The model, described by a four-dimensional dynamic system, is known to be practically verified and reliable. First we study the equilibrium points of the open-loop system, their stability and local bifurcations with respect to the control variable. Further we propose a feedback control law for asymptotic stabilization of the closed-loop system towards a previously chosen operating point. A numerical extremum seeking algorithm is designed to stabilize the dynamics towards the maximum methane output flow rate in the presence of coefficient uncertainties. Computer simulations in Maple are reported to illustrate the theoretical results