Mode Systems: LEGO-style Development for Cyber-Physical Systems

ABSTRACT: The recent “internet-of-things” (IoT) revolution has led to a profusion of miniaturized and cost effective components such as microprocessors, wireless communication devices, sensors, and actuators. This has enabled the “LEGO-style” design of complex cyber-physical systems. These systems integrate rich continuous dynamics, discrete switching, stochastic behaviors, and the presence of multiple rational agents. Thus the twin problems of reliable and secure design becomes extremely challenging. This necessitates a disciplined approach that guarantees correctness by construction.

In this talk, we will present multi-mode systems—a mathematical formalism that captures fundamentals of building complex behaviors from simpler predefined primitives. Multi-mode systems naturally capture discrete switching, continuous dynamics, worst-case, and stochastic disturbances in a simple mathematical framework. We present fundamental results on computation and control of such systems with relevance to diverse areas such as robotic path planning, hierarchical and discrete-event control, and game theory.

BIO: Ashutosh Trivedi is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Colorado Boulder. He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Warwick. Prior to joining the University of Colorado Boulder, Ashutosh worked as an assistant professor of computer science at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, and as postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford. Ashutosh’s research interests lies at the intersection of computer science and control theory. His research focuses on applying rigorous mathematical reasoning techniques for the design and analysis of safe and secure cyber- physical systems.

Hosted by: Paul Bogdan