Abstract
Some mathematical models of physical phenomena can exhibit radically different behavior when modified slightly to account for additional physical mechanisms. This can be understood as fragility of the mathematical model to small "perturbations" in the dynamical description. These phenomena appear to be more ubiquitous than is generally believed. Hydrodynamic stability of wall-bounded shear flows is one striking example. The well-known phenomenon of Anderson localization is another one where small amounts of material disorder can radically alter the nature of dynamical modes. Recent work has shown that such localization phenomena can also occur without the presence of medium disorder, but rather due to complex geometry such as in vibrational modes of several naturally occurring enzymes. The common thread between these seemingly disparate phenomena is the fragility of eigenvalues/vectors of large-scale matrices and operators when perturbed in various ways. These observations inspire the search for similar fragilities in large-scale dynamical networks such as the power grid amongst others. This talk will weave this common thread between these seemingly disparate fields, and connect them to the area of robust control, which is concerned with the behavior of systems in the presence of unmodelled dynamics.
About the Speaker
Bassam Bamieh is Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). He received his B.Sc. degree in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Valparaiso University (Valparaiso, IN) in 1983, and his M.Sc. and PhD degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University (Houston, TX) in 1986 and 1992 respectively. Prior to joining UCSB in 1998, he was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Coordinated Science Laboratory at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (1991-98).
Professor Bamieh's research interests are in the fundamentals of Controls and Dynamical Systems, as well as the applications of systems and feedback techniques in several physical and engineering systems. These areas include Robust and Optimal Control, distributed and networked control and dynamical systems, shear flow transition and turbulence, quantum control, and the use of feedback in thermoacoustic energy conversion devices. Professor Bamieh has co-authored over 200 refereed publications in Systems and Controls and allied fields. Hi recognitions include the IEEE Control Systems Society G. S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award (twice), an AACC Hugo Schuck Best Paper Award, and a National Science Foundation CAREER award. He was elected a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Control Systems Society (twice), a Fellow of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), and a Fellow of the IEEE with the citation “For contributions to robust, sampled-data and distributed control”
Host: Professor Srinivasa Salapaka