Colloquium Series

Fall 2018

All talks are from 3:45-4:45 p.m. in the Colloquium room, unless otherwise specified.

Tea and cookies will be served in the Lecture room starting at 3:30 p.m.

• Oct

  31
• Matroids, or the art of forgetting...

  Joseph Kung

  U. North Texas

  Time: 03:45 PM

• Sep

  24
• Computational Issues in Nonlinear Control and Estimation

  Arthur J. Krener

  NPS

  Location: Chauvenet 110

  Time: 12:00 PM

  View Abstract

  In the 1960’s and 1970’s the foundations of Linear Control and Estimation Theory were developed, controllability, observability, linear quadratic regulation, Kalman Filtering, H-Infinity control, etc. In the latter part of the 1970’s with advent workstations and reliable numerical linear algorithms (Linpack, Eispack, etc) the linear theory was realized in sophisticated software tools such as Matrix X, Control C and MATLAB. MATLAB eventually won the competition and its Control Toolbox has become the de facto standard numerical tool for linear systems. The theoretical foundations of nonlinear control and estimation were laid down starting in the 1970’s and the effort continues to this day. But very little attention has been given to general purpose software for nonlinear systems. There is more or less proprietary software for particular problems, almost every research paper ends with a simulation. But what is lacking portable, scalable, reliable, relatively easy to use software for large classes of nonlinear systems. We shall discuss a few first steps in this direction.