Related papers: Optimal discrete control: minimizing dissipation i…
Biological molecular machines are enzymes that simultaneously catalyze two processes, one donating free energy and second accepting it. Recent studies show that most native protein enzymes have a rich stochastic dynamics that often…
Mobile microscopic bodies, such as motile cells, can be modelled phenomenologically as ``active particles'' which can move against external forces by depleting an internal energy depot. The microscopic mechanisms underlying such ``active''…
Calculating free energy differences is a topic of substantial interest and has many applications including molecular docking and hydration, solvation, and binding free energies which is used in computational drug discovery. However, in…
A discrete-time method for solving problems in optimal quantum control is presented. Controlling the time discretized markovian dynamics of a quantum system can be reduced to a Markov-decision process. We demonstrate this method in this…
We give the solution to the minimum-energy control problem for linear stochastic systems. The problem is as follows: given an exactly controllable system, find the control process with the minimum expected energy that transfers the system…
The study of thermal heat engines was pivotal to establishing the principles of equilibrium thermodynamics, with implications far wider than only engine optimization. For nonequilibrium systems, which by definition dissipate energy even at…
Dynamical systems theory provides powerful methods to extract effective macroscopic dynamics from complex systems with slow modes and fast modes. Here we derive and theoretically support a macroscopic, spatially discrete, model for a class…
Molecular dynamics is a powerful tool for studying the thermodynamics and kinetics of complex molecular events. However, these simulations can rarely sample the required time scales in practice. Transition path sampling overcomes this…
We consider a dynamical system with finitely many equilibria and perturbed by small noise, in addition to being controlled by an `expensive' control. The controlled process is optimal for an ergodic criterion with a running cost that…
In this paper we present a self-contained macroscopic description of diffusive systems interacting with boundary reservoirs and under the action of external fields. The approach is based on simple postulates which are suggested by a wide…
Stochastic thermodynamics lays down a broad framework to revisit the venerable concepts of heat, work and entropy production for individual stochastic trajectories of mesoscopic systems. Remarkably, this approach, relying on stochastic…
Control of open quantum systems is an essential ingredient to the realization of contemporary quantum science and technology. We demonstrate such control by employing a thermodynamically consistent framework, taking into account the fact…
Quantum coherence inherently affects the dynamics and the performances of a quantum machine. Coherent control can, at least in principle, enhance the work extraction and boost the velocity of evolution in an open quantum system. Using…
In order to respond to environmental signals, cells often use small molecular circuits to transmit information about their surroundings. Recently, motivated by concrete examples in signaling and gene regulation, a body of work has focused…
Microscopic biological systems operate far from equilibrium, are subject to strong fluctuations, and are composed of many coupled components with interactions varying in nature and strength. Researchers are actively investigating the…
In this work, we present the integrated structure-control design of a 2-DOF underactuated mechanical system, aiming to achieve a periodic motion of the end-effector. The desired behavior is generated via input-output linearization, followed…
This paper addresses the distributed optimal frequency control of power systems considering a network-preserving model with nonlinear power flows and excitation voltage dynamics. Salient features of the proposed distributed control strategy…
We consider damped stochastic systems in a controlled (time-varying) quadratic potential and study their transition between specified Gibbs-equilibria states in finite time. By the second law of thermodynamics, the minimum amount of work…
The controllability of complex networks has received much attention recently, which tells whether we can steer a system from an initial state to any final state within finite time with admissible external inputs. In order to accomplish the…
This work presents DMPC (Data-and Model-Driven Predictive Control) to solve control problems in which some of the constraints or parts of the objective function are known, while others are entirely unknown to the controller. It is assumed…