Related papers: Energy-Efficient Control of Interacting Microscopi…
We study the trajectories of a single colloidal particle as it hops between two energy wells A and B, which are sculpted using adjacent optical traps by controlling their respective power levels and separation. Whereas the dynamical…
Trapping and manipulation of small particles underlies many scientific and technological applications. Recently, the precise manipulation of multiple small particles was demonstrated using a Stokes trap that relies only on fluid flow…
We study the elementary problem of moving an active particle by a trap with minimum work input. We show analytically that (open-loop) optimal protocols are not affected by activity, but work fluctuations are always increased. For…
Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs) offer significant potential for improving energy efficiency and lowering vehicle emissions through eco-driving technologies. Control algorithms in CAVs leverage look-ahead route information and…
Controlling the evolution of nonequilibrium systems to minimize dissipated heat or work is a key goal for designing nanodevices, both in nanotechnology and biology. Progress in computing optimal protocols has thus far been limited to either…
We study feedback control of coupled nonlinear stochastic oscillators in a force field. We first consider the problem of asymptotically driving the system to a desired {\em steady state} corresponding to reduced thermal noise. Among the…
We propose an optimization strategy to control the dynamics of a stochastic system transferred from one thermal equilibrium to another and apply it experimentally to a Brownian particle in an optical trap under compression. Based on a…
Stochastic resetting is a driving mechanism that is known to minimize the first passage time to reach a target, at the cost of energy expenditure. The choice of the physical implementation of each resetting event determines the tradeoff…
Control of continuous time dynamics with multiplicative noise is a classic topic in stochastic optimal control. This work addresses the problem of designing infinite horizon optimal controls with stability guarantees for \textit{a single…
The optimization of the conversion of thermal energy into work and the minimization of dissipation for nano- and mesoscopic systems is a complex challenge because of the important role fluctuations play on the dynamics of small systems. We…
We study one-dimensional hardcore lattice gases, with nearest-neighbor interactions, in the presence of an external potential barrier, that moves on the periodic lattice with a constant speed. We investigate how the nature of the…
By conditioning a stochastic process on the value of an observable, one obtains a new stochastic process with different properties. We apply this idea in the context of active matter, and condition interacting self-propelled particles on…
Gyroscopic interconnections enable redistribution of energy among degrees of freedom while preserving passivity and total energy, and they play a central role in controlled Lagrangian methods and IDA-PBC. Yet their quantitative effect on…
The optimal control of passive systems in equilibrium typically favours quasistatic (infinite-time) protocols. We show that a breakdown of quasistatic optimality occurs when the controller itself is dissipative. Concretely, we study a…
We study merchant energy production modeled as a compound switching and timing option. The resulting Markov decision process is intractable. State-of-the-art approximate dynamic programming methods applied to realistic instances of this…
We design optimal harmonic-trap trajectories to transport cold atoms without final excitation, combining an inverse engineering techniqe based on Lewis-Riesenfeld invariants with optimal control theory. Since actual traps are not really…
Devising optimal interventions for constraining stochastic systems is a challenging endeavour that has to confront the interplay between randomness and nonlinearity. Existing methods for identifying the necessary dynamical adjustments…
We study the thermodynamic cost associated with driving systems between different non-equilibrium steady states. In particular, we combine a linear-response framework for non-equilibrium Markov systems with Lagrangian techniques to minimize…
We present an optimal control procedure for the non-adiabatic transport of ultracold neutral thermal atoms in optical tweezers arranged in a one-dimensional array, with focus on reaching minimal transfer time. The particle dynamics are…
The second law of thermodynamics sets a lower bound on the work required to drive a system between thermal equilibrium states, with equality attained in the quasistatic limit. For finite-time processes, part of the extractable work is…