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We study the problem of optimizing released heat or dissipated work in stochastic thermodynamics. In the overdamped limit these functionals have singular solutions, previously interpreted as protocol jumps. We show that a regularization,…
In this paper, we investigate an optimal design problem motivated by some issues arising in population dynamics. In a nutshell, we aim at determining the optimal shape of a region occupied by resources for maximizing the survival ability of…
We investigate opportunities offered by telematics and analytics to enable better informed, and more integrated, collaborative management decisions on construction sites. We focus on efficient refuelling of assets across construction sites.…
This paper studies a class of multi-robot coordination problems where a team of robots aim to reach their goal regions with minimum time and avoid collisions with obstacles and other robots. A novel numerical algorithm is proposed to…
Finding tight bounds on the optimal solution is a critical element of practical solution methods for discrete optimization problems. In the last decade, decision diagrams (DDs) have brought a new perspective on obtaining upper and lower…
Discrete-time robust optimal control problems generally take a min-max structure over continuous variable spaces, which can be difficult to solve in practice. In this paper, we extend the class of such problems that can be solved through a…
Shaping the reachable set of a dynamical system is a fundamental challenge in control design, with direct implications for both performance and safety. This paper considers the problem of selecting the optimal input matrix for a linear…
This letter addresses the constraint compatibility problem of control barrier functions (CBFs), which occurs when a safety-critical CBF requires a system to apply more control effort than it is capable of generating. This inevitably leads…
We propose a new approach to solving dynamic decision problems with rewards that are unbounded below. The approach involves transforming the Bellman equation in order to convert an unbounded problem into a bounded one. The major advantage…
Offline optimal planning of trajectories for redundant robots along prescribed task space paths is usually broken down into two consecutive processes: first, the task space path is inverted to obtain a joint space path, then, the latter is…
In the theory of dynamic programming, an optimal policy is a policy whose lifetime value dominates that of all other policies from every possible initial condition in the state space. This raises a natural question: when does optimality…
We study problems of optimal boundary control with systems governed by linear hyperbolic partial differential equations. The objective function is quadratic and given by an integral over the finite time interval $(0,\, T)$ that depends on…
We consider the problem of a dynamical network whose dynamics is subject to external perturbations (`attacks') locally applied at a subset of the network nodes. We assume that the network has an ability to defend itself against attacks with…
This paper considers optimal control problems defined by a monotone dynamical system, a monotone cost, and monotone constraints. We identify families of such problems for which the optimal solution is bang-ride, i.e., always operates on the…
Urban intersections, merging roadways, roundabouts, and speed reduction zones along with the driver responses to various disturbances are the primary sources of bottlenecks in corridors that contribute to traffic congestion. The…
This document introduces a strategy to solve linear optimization problems. The strategy is based on the bounding condition each constraint produces on each one of the problem's dimension. The solution of a linear optimization problem is…
Dynamical energy analysis was recently introduced as a new method for determining the distribution of mechanical and acoustic wave energy in complex built up structures. The technique interpolates between standard statistical energy…
Differential equations (DE) constrained optimization plays a critical role in numerous scientific and engineering fields, including energy systems, aerospace engineering, ecology, and finance, where optimal configurations or control…
The paper addresses the problem of optimization of a guaranteed (worst case) result for a control system driven by a controlling side in presence of a dynamical disturbance. The disturbances as functions of time are subject to functional…
We present a centralized algorithmic framework for solving multi-robot path planning problems in general, two-dimensional, continuous environments while minimizing globally the task completion time. The framework obtains high levels of…