Spring 2015 MnDRIVE Seminar Series
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Justin Ruths,
Singapore University of Technology and Design
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Abstract
Recent work at the borders of network science and control theory has begun to investigate the control of complex systems by studying their underlying network representations. In this talk I will present a new network statistic based on controllability, the control profile, that clarifies the underlying functional reasons for the placement of controls in a network. This statistic produces a mechanism to cluster networks into classes that are consistent with their large scale architecture and purpose. In the second half of this talk, I will present a new perspective on the control of networks motivated by modulating agent interactions rather than directly controlling agents, which leads to a bilinear control model. We develop graph-theoretic conditions for the structural control of a class of bilinear systems, which provide insight into the controllability conditions for classical, nonstructured systems.
Biosketch
Justin Ruths is an assistant professor and founding member of the Singapore University of Technology and Design, Singapore's new fourth national university, a collaborative venture with MIT. Justin holds degrees in Physics (BS, Rice University), Mechanical Engineering (MS, Columbia University), Electrical Engineering (MS, Washington University in Saint Louis), and Systems Science and Applied Math (PhD, Washington University in Saint Louis). His research themes include casting problems in the natural sciences and medicine as optimal control problems and investigating the control of large-scale systems. Towards this latter goal, some of his recent work is at the interface of control and network science.