DCL Seminar: Stacy Patterson - A Framework for Analysis and Design of Robust Networked Systems

Decision and Control Lecture Series

Coordinated Science Laboratory

 

 “A Framework for Analysis and Design of Robust Networked Systems”

 

Stacy Patterson, Ph.D.

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

 

Wednesday, November 8, 2017

3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

CSL Auditorium (B02)

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Abstract:

This talk presents a framework for analysis and design of robust networked systems. The framework encompasses a broad class of dynamics, including first-order consensus dynamics, opinion dynamics with stubborn agents, leader-follower dynamics for formation control, and HVDC power networks with decentralized proportional control. I will first show how we can quantify performance for each of these dynamics in terms of resistance distances in a corresponding electrical network. I will then show how this resistance distance-based formulation can be used derive analytical solutions for many optimization and design problems over such networks. I will also draw connections between the resistance distance-based approach and classical network facility location problems; these connections allow facility location algorithms to be extended to dynamical systems. Finally, I will show that, in systems with second-order consensus dynamics, the biharmonic distance plays a similar role to that of resistance distance in first-order systems. Thus, by using biharmonic distance, our framework can be extended to the analysis of second-order systems.

 

Bio:

Stacy Patterson is the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor in the Department of Computer Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. She received the MS and PhD in computer science from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 2003 and 2009, respectively.  From 2009 to 2011, she was a postdoctoral scholar at the Center for Control, Dynamical Systems and Computation at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  From 2011 to 2013, she was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Technion - Israel Institute of Technology. Dr. Patterson is the recipient of a Viterbi postdoctoral fellowship, the IEEE CSS Axelby Outstanding Paper Award, and an NSF CAREER award.  Her research interests include distributed systems, cloud computing, sensor networks, and the Internet of Things.