Quantifying efficiency and robustness in large-scale networks

Abstract: Dynamical systems coupled over graphs arise in a number of applications from power grids to vehicle networks.  These systems are most often characterized in terms of their stability. However, the performance of these networks is also of great importance as it often corresponds to system efficiency and robustness.  In this talk, we discuss a broad class of performance measures for first and second order systems whose outputs are defined so that particular performance metrics can be quantified through the input-output H2 norm of the system.  We first present results for systems with the same physical interconnection and communication graph structures. We discuss the effect of graph size and interconnection structure for two applications; characterizing transient real power losses in power grids and evaluating long range disorder in vehicular platoons with both relative and absolute velocity feedback.  We then extend our results to vehicular networks with arbitrary physical arrangements and communication structures to demonstrate that our proposed suite of performance measures can be adapted to determine the minimum disturbance energy that is required to cause a collision between any two vehicles.  Finally, we further explore the effect of graph structure by considering systems with directed communication graphs.

Bio: Dennice F. Gayme is an Assistant Professor and the Carol Croft Linde Faculty Scholar in Mechanical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University.  She earned her B. Eng. & Society from McMaster University in 1997 and an M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley in 1998, both in Mechanical Engineering. She received her Ph.D. in Control and Dynamical Systems in 2010 from the California Institute of Technology, where she was a recipient of the P.E.O. scholar award in 2007 and the James Irvine Foundation Graduate Fellowship in 2003. Her research interests are in modeling, analysis and control for spatially distributed and large-scale networked systems in applications such as wall-bounded turbulent flows, wind farms, power grids and vehicular networks.  She was a recipient of the JHU Catalyst Award in 2015, a 2017 ONR Young Investigator award, and an NSF CAREER award in 2017.

Hosted by Professors Paul Bogdan