Probabilistic Modeling For Sensor Fusion With Inertial Measurements
DOWNLOAD
Download Probabilistic Modeling For Sensor Fusion With Inertial Measurements PDF/ePub or read online books in Mobi eBooks. Click Download or Read Online button to get Probabilistic Modeling For Sensor Fusion With Inertial Measurements book now. This website allows unlimited access to, at the time of writing, more than 1.5 million titles, including hundreds of thousands of titles in various foreign languages. If the content not found or just blank you must refresh this page
Probabilistic Modeling For Sensor Fusion With Inertial Measurements
DOWNLOAD
Author : Manon Kok
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2016-12-15
Probabilistic Modeling For Sensor Fusion With Inertial Measurements written by Manon Kok and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2016-12-15 with categories.
In recent years, inertial sensors have undergone major developments. The quality of their measurements has improved while their cost has decreased, leading to an increase in availability. They can be found in stand-alone sensor units, so-called inertial measurement units, but are nowadays also present in for instance any modern smartphone, in Wii controllers and in virtual reality headsets. The term inertial sensor refers to the combination of accelerometers and gyroscopes. These measure the external specific force and the angular velocity, respectively. Integration of their measurements provides information about the sensor's position and orientation. However, the position and orientation estimates obtained by simple integration suffer from drift and are therefore only accurate on a short time scale. In order to improve these estimates, we combine the inertial sensors with additional sensors and models. To combine these different sources of information, also called sensor fusion, we make use of probabilistic models to take the uncertainty of the different sources of information into account. The first contribution of this thesis is a tutorial paper that describes the signal processing foundations underlying position and orientation estimation using inertial sensors. In a second contribution, we use data from multiple inertial sensors placed on the human body to estimate the body's pose. A biomechanical model encodes the knowledge about how the different body segments are connected to each other. We also show how the structure inherent to this problem can be exploited. This opens up for processing long data sets and for solving the problem in a distributed manner. Inertial sensors can also be combined with time of arrival measurements from an ultrawideband (UWB) system. We focus both on calibration of the UWB setup and on sensor fusion of the inertial and UWB measurements. The UWB measurements are modeled by a tailored heavy-tailed asymmetric distribution. This distribution naturally handles the possibility of measurement delays due to multipath and non-line-of-sight conditions while not allowing for the possibility of measurements arriving early, i.e. traveling faster than the speed of light. Finally, inertial sensors can be combined with magnetometers. We derive an algorithm that can calibrate a magnetometer for the presence of metallic objects attached to the sensor. Furthermore, the presence of metallic objects in the environment can be exploited by using them as a source of position information. We present a method to build maps of the indoor magnetic field and experimentally show that if a map of the magnetic field is available, accurate position estimates can be obtained by combining inertial and magnetometer measurements.
Structure Exploiting Numerical Algorithms For Optimal Control
DOWNLOAD
Author : Isak Nielsen
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2017-04-20
Structure Exploiting Numerical Algorithms For Optimal Control written by Isak Nielsen and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-04-20 with categories.
Numerical algorithms for efficiently solving optimal control problems are important for commonly used advanced control strategies, such as model predictive control (MPC), but can also be useful for advanced estimation techniques, such as moving horizon estimation (MHE). In MPC, the control input is computed by solving a constrained finite-time optimal control (CFTOC) problem on-line, and in MHE the estimated states are obtained by solving an optimization problem that often can be formulated as a CFTOC problem. Common types of optimization methods for solving CFTOC problems are interior-point (IP) methods, sequential quadratic programming (SQP) methods and active-set (AS) methods. In these types of methods, the main computational effort is often the computation of the second-order search directions. This boils down to solving a sequence of systems of equations that correspond to unconstrained finite-time optimal control (UFTOC) problems. Hence, high-performing second-order methods for CFTOC problems rely on efficient numerical algorithms for solving UFTOC problems. Developing such algorithms is one of the main focuses in this thesis. When the solution to a CFTOC problem is computed using an AS type method, the aforementioned system of equations is only changed by a low-rank modification between two AS iterations. In this thesis, it is shown how to exploit these structured modifications while still exploiting structure in the UFTOC problem using the Riccati recursion. Furthermore, direct (non-iterative) parallel algorithms for computing the search directions in IP, SQP and AS methods are proposed in the thesis. These algorithms exploit, and retain, the sparse structure of the UFTOC problem such that no dense system of equations needs to be solved serially as in many other algorithms. The proposed algorithms can be applied recursively to obtain logarithmic computational complexity growth in the prediction horizon length. For the case with linear MPC problems, an alternative approach to solving the CFTOC problem on-line is to use multiparametric quadratic programming (mp-QP), where the corresponding CFTOC problem can be solved explicitly off-line. This is referred to as explicit MPC. One of the main limitations with mp-QP is the amount of memory that is required to store the parametric solution. In this thesis, an algorithm for decreasing the required amount of memory is proposed. The aim is to make mp-QP and explicit MPC more useful in practical applications, such as embedded systems with limited memory resources. The proposed algorithm exploits the structure from the QP problem in the parametric solution in order to reduce the memory footprint of general mp-QP solutions, and in particular, of explicit MPC solutions. The algorithm can be used directly in mp-QP solvers, or as a post-processing step to an existing solution.
Fighter Aircraft Maneuver Limiting Using Mpc Theory And Application
DOWNLOAD
Author : Daniel Simon
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2017-09-12
Fighter Aircraft Maneuver Limiting Using Mpc Theory And Application written by Daniel Simon and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2017-09-12 with categories.
Flight control design for modern fighter aircraft is a challenging task. Aircraft are dynamical systems, which naturally contain a variety of constraints and nonlinearities such as, e.g., maximum permissible load factor, angle of attack and control surface deflections. Taking these limitations into account in the design of control systems is becoming increasingly important as the performance and complexity of the aircraft is constantly increasing. The aeronautical industry has traditionally applied feedforward, anti-windup or similar techniques and different ad hoc engineering solutions to handle constraints on the aircraft. However these approaches often rely on engineering experience and insight rather than a theoretical foundation, and can often require a tremendous amount of time to tune. In this thesis we investigate model predictive control as an alternative design tool to handle the constraints that arises in the flight control design. We derive a simple reference tracking MPC algorithm for linear systems that build on the dual mode formulation with guaranteed stability and low complexity suitable for implementation in real time safety critical systems. To reduce the computational burden of nonlinear model predictive control we propose a method to handle the nonlinear constraints, using a set of dynamically generated local inner polytopic approximations. The main benefit of the proposed method is that while computationally cheap it still can guarantee recursive feasibility and convergence. An alternative to deriving MPC algorithms with guaranteed stability properties is to analyze the closed loop stability, post design. Here we focus on deriving a tool based on Mixed Integer Linear Programming for analysis of the closed loop stability and robust stability of linear systems controlled with MPC controllers. To test the performance of model predictive control for a real world example we design and implement a standard MPC controller in the development simulator for the JAS 39 Gripen aircraft at Saab Aeronautics. This part of the thesis focuses on practical and tuning aspects of designing MPC controllers for fighter aircraft. Finally we have compared the MPC design with an alternative approach to maneuver limiting using a command governor.
Gaussian Processes For Positioning Using Radio Signal Strength Measurements
DOWNLOAD
Author : Yuxin Zhao
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2019-02-27
Gaussian Processes For Positioning Using Radio Signal Strength Measurements written by Yuxin Zhao and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2019-02-27 with categories.
Estimation of unknown parameters is considered as one of the major research areas in statistical signal processing. In the most recent decades, approaches in estimation theory have become more and more attractive in practical applications. Examples of such applications may include, but are not limited to, positioning using various measurable radio signals in indoor environments, self-navigation for autonomous cars, image processing, radar tracking and so on. One issue that is usually encountered when solving an estimation problem is to identify a good system model, which may have great impacts on the estimation performance. In this thesis, we are interested in studying estimation problems particularly in inferring the unknown positions from noisy radio signal measurements. In addition, the modeling of the system is studied by investigating the relationship between positions and radio signal strength measurements. One of the main contributions of this thesis is to propose a novel indoor positioning framework based on proximity measurements, which are obtained by quantizing the received signal strength measurements. Sequential Monte Carlo methods, to be more specific particle filter and smoother, are utilized for estimating unknown positions from proximity measurements. The Cramér-Rao bounds for proximity-based positioning are further derived as a benchmark for the positioning accuracy in this framework. Secondly, to improve the estimation performance, Bayesian non-parametric modeling, namely Gaussian processes, have been adopted to provide more accurate and flexible models for both dynamic motions and radio signal strength measurements. Then, the Cramér-Rao bounds for Gaussian process based system models are derived and evaluated in an indoor positioning scenario. In addition, we estimate the positions of stationary devices by comparing the individual signal strength measurements with a pre-constructed fingerprinting database. The positioning accuracy is further compared to the case where a moving device is positioned using a time series of radio signal strength measurements. Moreover, Gaussian processes have been applied to sports analytics, where trajectory modeling for athletes is studied. The proposed framework can be further utilized to carry out, for instance, performance prediction and analysis, health condition monitoring, etc. Finally, a grey-box modeling is proposed to analyze the forces, particularly in cross-country skiing races, by combining a deterministic kinetic model with Gaussian process.
Exploiting Direct Optimal Control For Motion Planning In Unstructured Environments
DOWNLOAD
Author : Kristoffer Bergman
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2021-03-16
Exploiting Direct Optimal Control For Motion Planning In Unstructured Environments written by Kristoffer Bergman and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-03-16 with categories.
During the last decades, motion planning for autonomous systems has become an important area of research. The high interest is not the least due to the development of systems such as self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles and robotic manipulators. The objective in optimal motion planning problems is to find feasible motion plans that also optimize a performance measure. From a control perspective, the problem is an instance of an optimal control problem. This thesis addresses optimal motion planning problems for complex dynamical systems that operate in unstructured environments, where no prior reference such as road-lane information is available. Some example scenarios are autonomous docking of vessels in harbors and autonomous parking of self-driving tractor-trailer vehicles at loading sites. The focus is to develop optimal motion planning algorithms that can reliably be applied to these types of problems. This is achieved by combining recent ideas from automatic control, numerical optimization and robotics. The first contribution is a systematic approach for computing local solutions to motion planning problems in challenging unstructured environments. The solutions are computed by combining homotopy methods and direct optimal control techniques. The general principle is to define a homotopy that transforms, or preferably relaxes, the original problem to an easily solved problem. The approach is demonstrated in motion planning problems in 2D and 3D environments, where the presented method outperforms a state-of-the-art asymptotically optimal motion planner based on random sampling. The second contribution is an optimization-based framework for automatic generation of motion primitives for lattice-based motion planners. Given a family of systems, the user only needs to specify which principle types of motions that are relevant for the considered system family. Based on the selected principle motions and a selected system instance, the framework computes a library of motion primitives by simultaneously optimizing the motions and the terminal states. The final contribution of this thesis is a motion planning framework that combines the strengths of sampling-based planners with direct optimal control in a novel way. The sampling-based planner is applied to the problem in a first step using a discretized search space, where the system dynamics and objective function are chosen to coincide with those used in a second step based on optimal control. This combination ensures that the sampling-based motion planner provides a feasible motion plan which is highly suitable as warm-start to the optimal control step. Furthermore, the second step is modified such that it also can be applied in a receding-horizon fashion, where the proposed combination of methods is used to provide theoretical guarantees in terms of recursive feasibility, worst-case objective function value and convergence to the terminal state. The proposed motion planning framework is successfully applied to several problems in challenging unstructured environments for tractor-trailer vehicles. The framework is also applied and tailored for maritime navigation for vessels in archipelagos and harbors, where it is able to compute energy-efficient trajectories which complies with the international regulations for preventing collisions at sea.
Motion Planning And Feedback Control Techniques With Applications To Long Tractor Trailer Vehicles
DOWNLOAD
Author : Oskar Ljungqvist
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2020-04-20
Motion Planning And Feedback Control Techniques With Applications To Long Tractor Trailer Vehicles written by Oskar Ljungqvist and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-04-20 with categories.
During the last decades, improved sensor and hardware technologies as well as new methods and algorithms have made self-driving vehicles a realistic possibility in the near future. At the same time, there has been a growing demand within the transportation sector to increase efficiency and to reduce the environmental impact related to transportation of people and goods. Therefore, many leading automotive and technology companies have turned their attention towards developing advanced driver assistance systems and self-driving vehicles. Autonomous vehicles are expected to have their first big impact in closed environments, such as mines, harbors, loading and offloading sites. In such areas, the legal requirements are less restrictive and the surrounding environment is more controlled and predictable compared to urban areas. Expected positive outcomes include increased productivity and safety, reduced emissions and the possibility to relieve the human from performing complex or dangerous tasks. Within these sites, tractor-trailer vehicles are frequently used for transportation. These vehicles are composed of several interconnected vehicle segments, and are therefore large, complex and unstable while reversing. This thesis addresses the problem of designing efficient motion planning and feedback control techniques for such systems. The contributions of this thesis are within the area of motion planning and feedback control for long tractor-trailer combinations operating at low-speeds in closed and unstructured environments. It includes development of motion planning and feedback control frameworks, structured design tools for guaranteeing closed-loop stability and experimental validation of the proposed solutions through simulations, lab and field experiments. Even though the primary application in this work is tractor-trailer vehicles, many of the proposed approaches can with some adjustments also be used for other systems, such as drones and ships. The developed sampling-based motion planning algorithms are based upon the probabilistic closed-loop rapidly exploring random tree (CL-RRT) algorithm and the deterministic lattice-based motion planning algorithm. It is also proposed to use numerical optimal control offline for precomputing libraries of optimized maneuvers as well as during online planning in the form of a warm-started optimization step. To follow the motion plan, several predictive path-following control approaches are proposed with different computational complexity and performance. Common for these approaches are that they use a path-following error model of the vehicle for future predictions and are tailored to operate in series with a motion planner that computes feasible paths. The design strategies for the path-following approaches include linear quadratic (LQ) control and several advanced model predictive control (MPC) techniques to account for physical and sensing limitations. To strengthen the practical value of the developed techniques, several of the proposed approaches have been implemented and successfully demonstrated in field experiments on a full-scale test platform. To estimate the vehicle states needed for control, a novel nonlinear observer is evaluated on the full-scale test vehicle. It is designed to only utilize information from sensors that are mounted on the tractor, making the system independent of any sensor mounted on the trailer. Under de senaste årtiondena har utvecklingen av sensor- och hårdvaruteknik gått i en snabb takt, samtidigt som nya metoder och algoritmer har introducerats. Samtidigt ställs det stora krav på transportsektorn att öka effektiviteten och minska miljöpåverkan vid transporter av både människor och varor. Som en följd av detta har många ledande fordonstillverkare och teknikföretag börjat satsat på att utveckla avancerade förarstödsystem och självkörande fordon. Även forskningen inom autonoma fordon har under de senaste årtiondena kraftig ökat då en rad tekniska problem återstår att lösas. Förarlösa fordon förväntas få sitt första stora genombrott i slutna miljöer, såsom gruvor, hamnar, lastnings- och lossningsplatser. I sådana områden är lagstiftningen mindre hård jämfört med stadsområden och omgivningen är mer kontrollerad och förutsägbar. Några av de förväntade positiva effekterna är ökad produktivitet och säkerhet, minskade utsläpp och möjligheten att avlasta människor från att utföra svåra eller farliga uppgifter. Inom dessa platser används ofta lastbilar med olika släpvagnskombinationer för att transportera material. En sådan fordonskombination är uppbyggd av flera ihopkopplade moduler och är således utmanande att backa då systemet är instabilt. Detta gör det svårt att utforma ramverk för att styra sådana system vid exempelvis autonom backning. Självkörande fordon är mycket komplexa system som består av en rad olika komponenter vilka är designade för att lösa separata delproblem. Två viktiga komponenter i ett självkörande fordon är dels rörelseplaneraren som har i uppgift att planera hur fordonet ska röra sig för att på ett säkert sätt nå ett överordnat mål, och dels den banföljande regulatorn vars uppgift är att se till att den planerade manövern faktiskt utförs i praktiken trots störningar och modellfel. I denna avhandling presenteras flera olika algoritmer för att planera och utföra komplexa manövrar för lastbilar med olika typer av släpvagnskombinationer. De presenterade algoritmerna är avsedda att användas som avancerade förarstödsystem eller som komponenter i ett helt autonomt system. Även om den primära applikationen i denna avhandling är lastbilar med släp, kan många av de förslagna algoritmerna även användas för en rad andra system, så som drönare och båtar. Experimentell validering är viktigt för att motivera att en föreslagen algoritm är användbar i praktiken. I denna avhandling har flera av de föreslagna planerings- och reglerstrategierna implementerats på en småskalig testplattform och utvärderats i en kontrollerad labbmiljö. Utöver detta har även flera av de föreslagna ramverken implementerats och utvärderats i fältexperiment på en fullskalig test-plattform som har utvecklats i samarbete med Scania CV. Här utvärderas även en ny metod för att skatta släpvagnens beteende genom att endast utnyttja information från sensorer monterade på lastbilen, vilket gör det föreslagna ramverket oberoende av sensorer monterade på släpvagnen.
Advances In Dynamics Of Vehicles On Roads And Tracks Ii
DOWNLOAD
Author : Anna Orlova
language : en
Publisher: Springer Nature
Release Date : 2022-08-08
Advances In Dynamics Of Vehicles On Roads And Tracks Ii written by Anna Orlova and has been published by Springer Nature this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2022-08-08 with Technology & Engineering categories.
This book offers a snapshot of the latest research and developments in road and railway vehicle dynamics. Gathering peer-reviewed contributions to the 27th Symposium of the International Association of Vehicle System Dynamics (IAVSD), held online on August 17–19, 2021, from Saint Petersburg, Russia, it offers extensive information for both researchers and professionals in the field of ground vehicle dynamics, control and design. It covers cutting-edge methods and solutions for solving ground vehicle system dynamics-related problems, concerning control and monitoring, performance, safety and braking of road and rail vehicles, including electric and autonomous ones. Further, it reports on significant advances in vehicle design, and important applications to improve ride comfort. Overall, the book provides academics and professional with a timely reference guide on theories and methods to understand, analyze and improve vehicle stability and dynamics in a broad range of different operating conditions. Chapter "Experimental Validation of a Semi-physical Modelling Approach of the Influence of Tyre Rotation on the Vertical Tyre Force Transmission and Tyre Kinematics" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Sensor Management For Target Tracking Applications
DOWNLOAD
Author : Per Boström-Rost
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2021-04-12
Sensor Management For Target Tracking Applications written by Per Boström-Rost and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2021-04-12 with categories.
Many practical applications, such as search and rescue operations and environmental monitoring, involve the use of mobile sensor platforms. The workload of the sensor operators is becoming overwhelming, as both the number of sensors and their complexity are increasing. This thesis addresses the problem of automating sensor systems to support the operators. This is often referred to as sensor management. By planning trajectories for the sensor platforms and exploiting sensor characteristics, the accuracy of the resulting state estimates can be improved. The considered sensor management problems are formulated in the framework of stochastic optimal control, where prior knowledge, sensor models, and environment models can be incorporated. The core challenge lies in making decisions based on the predicted utility of future measurements. In the special case of linear Gaussian measurement and motion models, the estimation performance is independent of the actual measurements. This reduces the problem of computing sensing trajectories to a deterministic optimal control problem, for which standard numerical optimization techniques can be applied. A theorem is formulated that makes it possible to reformulate a class of nonconvex optimization problems with matrix-valued variables as convex optimization problems. This theorem is then used to prove that globally optimal sensing trajectories can be computed using off-the-shelf optimization tools. As in many other fields, nonlinearities make sensor management problems more complicated. Two approaches are derived to handle the randomness inherent in the nonlinear problem of tracking a maneuvering target using a mobile range-bearing sensor with limited field of view. The first approach uses deterministic sampling to predict several candidates of future target trajectories that are taken into account when planning the sensing trajectory. This significantly increases the tracking performance compared to a conventional approach that neglects the uncertainty in the future target trajectory. The second approach is a method to find the optimal range between the sensor and the target. Given the size of the sensor's field of view and an assumption of the maximum acceleration of the target, the optimal range is determined as the one that minimizes the tracking error while satisfying a user-defined constraint on the probability of losing track of the target. While optimization for tracking of a single target may be difficult, planning for jointly maintaining track of discovered targets and searching for yet undetected targets is even more challenging. Conventional approaches are typically based on a traditional tracking method with separate handling of undetected targets. Here, it is shown that the Poisson multi-Bernoulli mixture (PMBM) filter provides a theoretical foundation for a unified search and track method, as it not only provides state estimates of discovered targets, but also maintains an explicit representation of where undetected targets may be located. Furthermore, in an effort to decrease the computational complexity, a version of the PMBM filter which uses a grid-based intensity to represent undetected targets is derived.
Inverse System Identification With Applications In Predistortion
DOWNLOAD
Author : Ylva Jung
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2018-12-19
Inverse System Identification With Applications In Predistortion written by Ylva Jung and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2018-12-19 with categories.
Models are commonly used to simulate events and processes, and can be constructed from measured data using system identification. The common way is to model the system from input to output, but in this thesis we want to obtain the inverse of the system. Power amplifiers (PAs) used in communication devices can be nonlinear, and this causes interference in adjacent transmitting channels. A prefilter, called predistorter, can be used to invert the effects of the PA, such that the combination of predistorter and PA reconstructs an amplified version of the input signal. In this thesis, the predistortion problem has been investigated for outphasing power amplifiers, where the input signal is decomposed into two branches that are amplified separately by highly efficient nonlinear amplifiers and then recombined. We have formulated a model structure describing the imperfections in an outphasing abbrPA and the matching ideal predistorter. The predistorter can be estimated from measured data in different ways. Here, the initially nonconvex optimization problem has been developed into a convex problem. The predistorters have been evaluated in measurements. The goal with the inverse models in this thesis is to use them in cascade with the systems to reconstruct the original input. It is shown that the problems of identifying a model of a preinverse and a postinverse are fundamentally different. It turns out that the true inverse is not necessarily the best one when noise is present, and that other models and structures can lead to better inversion results. To construct a predistorter (for a PA, for example), a model of the inverse is used, and different methods can be used for the estimation. One common method is to estimate a postinverse, and then using it as a preinverse, making it straightforward to try out different model structures. Another is to construct a model of the system and then use it to estimate a preinverse in a second step. This method identifies the inverse in the setup it will be used, but leads to a complicated optimization problem. A third option is to model the forward system and then invert it. This method can be understood using standard identification theory in contrast to the ones above, but the model is tuned for the forward system, not the inverse. Models obtained using the various methods capture different properties of the system, and a more detailed analysis of the methods is presented for linear time-invariant systems and linear approximations of block-oriented systems. The theory is also illustrated in examples. When a preinverse is used, the input to the system will be changed, and typically the input data will be different than the original input. This is why the estimation of preinverses is more complicated than for postinverses, and one set of experimental data is not enough. Here, we have shown that identifying a preinverse in series with the system in repeated experiments can improve the inversion performance.
Controllability Of Complex Networks At Minimum Cost
DOWNLOAD
Author : Gustav Lindmark
language : en
Publisher: Linköping University Electronic Press
Release Date : 2020-04-30
Controllability Of Complex Networks At Minimum Cost written by Gustav Lindmark and has been published by Linköping University Electronic Press this book supported file pdf, txt, epub, kindle and other format this book has been release on 2020-04-30 with categories.
The control-theoretic notion of controllability captures the ability to guide a system toward a desired state with a suitable choice of inputs. Controllability of complex networks such as traffic networks, gene regulatory networks, power grids etc. can for instance enable efficient operation or entirely new applicative possibilities. However, when control theory is applied to complex networks like these, several challenges arise. This thesis considers some of them, in particular we investigate how a given network can be rendered controllable at a minimum cost by placement of control inputs or by growing the network with additional edges between its nodes. As cost function we take either the number of control inputs that are needed or the energy that they must exert. A control input is called unilateral if it can assume either positive or negative values, but not both. Motivated by the many applications where unilateral controls are common, we reformulate classical controllability results for this particular case into a more computationally-efficient form that enables a large scale analysis. Assuming that each control input targets only one node (called a driver node), we show that the unilateral controllability problem is to a high degree structural: from topological properties of the network we derive theoretical lower bounds for the minimal number of unilateral control inputs, bounds similar to those that have already been established for the minimal number of unconstrained control inputs (e.g. can assume both positive and negative values). With a constructive algorithm for unilateral control input placement we also show that the theoretical bounds can often be achieved. A network may be controllable in theory but not in practice if for instance unreasonable amounts of control energy are required to steer it in some direction. For the case with unconstrained control inputs, we show that the control energy depends on the time constants of the modes of the network, the longer they are, the less energy is required for control. We also present different strategies for the problem of placing driver nodes such that the control energy requirements are reduced (assuming that theoretical controllability is not an issue). For the most general class of networks we consider, directed networks with arbitrary eigenvalues (and thereby arbitrary time constants), we suggest strategies based on a novel characterization of network non-normality as imbalance in the distribution of energy over the network. Our formulation allows to quantify network non-normality at a node level as combination of two different centrality metrics. The first measure quantifies the influence that each node has on the rest of the network, while the second measure instead describes the ability to control a node indirectly from the other nodes. Selecting the nodes that maximize the network non-normality as driver nodes significantly reduces the energy needed for control. Growing a network, i.e. adding more edges to it, is a promising alternative to reduce the energy needed to control it. We approach this by deriving a sensitivity function that enables to quantify the impact of an edge modification with the H2 and H? norms, which in turn can be used to design edge additions that improve commonly used control energy metrics.