controls

Expanding the scope: Researchers explore wind farm co-design with communities

Anonymous — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 16:16:52 +0000

Expanding the scope: Researchers explore wind farm co-design with communities Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 11/21/2022 - 09:16

Emily Adams

In past projects, Professor Lucy Pao and her research group have focused on designing the best control systems for wind turbines — systems aimed at maximizing power production or reducing structural loads.

However, their scope has begun to expand over the past decade, as they’ve started co-designing wind turbines with aerodynamicists and structural dynamicists.

“It was really interesting to see what the people from those sides care about,” Pao said. “When we co-designed all of these aspects together, we were able really to come up with much lower-cost designs.”

With their most recent project, published in the journal Joule, Pao and some of her collaborators teamed up with an even broader group of engineers and scientists. They began to look at what it would mean to bring communities into the process of designing wind farms. Could they co-design with public utilities or other community stakeholders in ways that reduce opposition to projects and better meet community needs?

The framework they propose “considers wind energy from a full social, technical, economic, and political viewpoint,” they wrote. Including all of those viewpoints, they say, can better address the full scope of a wind farm project — from cost and power-grid integration to community acceptance.

“Can we translate community needs into constraints on the engineered system?” Pao said. “What are they worried about? What are their concerns and what are their interests in wind or storage and their needs from the electrical demand side?”

She said communities often don’t know what options are available when a wind farm is proposed in their area. For instance, turbine blades can be slowed to have less of an impact on birds, or it might be possible to move the farm to another location if different storage methods are incorporated.

Pao added that the co-design process could even help reduce tensions around the growing sustainable energy economy.

“If that community has a coal power plant that's shutting down because wind is going up, a co-design process could help them with the transfer of their knowledge and their capabilities so they can be part of this new technology,” she said.

As a next step in broadening her research group’s efforts, Pao and her collaborators are looking for funding to develop and test a concept for an integrated wind and hydropower system. The system would use “leftover” wind energy to pump water between lower and upper reservoirs, then releasing that water the next time wind speeds drop – turning the reservoir into wind-energy storage, in a way.

“We could try to work with communities to convey that by doing that, then you don't need as big of a hydropower system,” Pao said. “Hopefully, that has a lower community impact overall.”

Read the full Joule article Read more about the project

With their most recent project, published in the journal Joule, Pao and her collaborators began to look at what it would mean to bring communities into the process of designing wind farms.

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Former ECEE postdoc: 'I aim to be an effective, engaging and inspiring educator'

Anonymous — Fri, 16 Sep 2022 18:37:18 +0000

Former ECEE postdoc: 'I aim to be an effective, engaging and inspiring educator' Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/16/2022 - 12:37

Gianluca Bianchin spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at CU Boulder, working with Assistant Professor Emiliano Dall'Anese from May 2020 to August 2022. Bianchin started his first faculty position at Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium this fall.

As we prepare to celebrate National Postdoc Appreciation Week Sept. 19-23, we asked him to share some of his experiences at CU Boulder and what he looks forward to in his academic career.

What made you decide to pursue a career in academia?

My interest in academic research dates back to when I was pursuing my master’s degree at the University of Padova, Italy. In my second semester at Padova, I registered for a course called Control Systems Design, taught by Prof. Angelo Cenedese. This course was structured around Prof. Cenedese’s research topics, which, at the time, were focused on networks of multi-agent systems and geometric applied to control. By exposing me to open research questions, this class made me visualize for the first time some of the boundaries of human knowledge in the field of control systems and inspired me to contribute to expanding these boundaries.

After finishing my master’s studies, I was extremely fortunate to join the group of Prof. Fabio Pasqualetti at the University of California Riverside. Prof. Pasqualetti has been an extremely inspiring advisor, constantly instilling in me a desire to explore new research directions and motivating me to pursue impactful research problems. One of the most important things I learned from Prof. Pasqualetti is that a key to conducting outstanding academic research is to make sure that “your research project feels your own.” After conducting research on general problems in controls for two years, I finally narrowed in on “my own research goal” that, to date, is to accelerate the transition to a sustainable society through the electrification of transportation systems, the use of shared mobility, and their integration with renewable energy. My exposure to such a stimulating environment and research topics made me fall in love with the academic career.

As a first-generation college student, what advice do you have for others who are starting in a similar place you did?

As a first-generation college graduate, pursuing a career in academic research has not been a smooth path. Beyond this, pursuing studies internationally several thousands of miles away from a familiar environment has required great career focus and constant sacrifice. For instance, it is often difficult to explain to family members the true importance of academic research and its impact on society. To persevere as a graduate student and later as a postdoc, I proactively sought out help, encouragement, and support from my peers throughout my academic studies. My greatest advice to incoming students and postdocs is to do the same: there are many people, friends, and peers out there who are happy to help you! I would also like to impart to them that many other students and researchers often face similar challenges, and it will become exponentially easier to overcome difficulties collectively than individually.

How did you choose CU Boulder for your postdoctoral work?

For me, CU Boulder is a university in a league of its own for two reasons: its academic quality and its unique geographical location. Most of the faculty members in the College of Engineering & Applied Science conduct cutting-edge research of world-leading quality, and the quality of research is fostered through many collaborations with local organizations. For instance, in 2022 I have been involved in a collaborative project with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). In this sense, my decision to pursue a postdoctoral position at CU Boulder was inspired by the quality of research and the endless number of opportunities that CU Boulder has to offer. In addition to this, Colorado's world-famous landscape paired with the university's unbeatable location at the foot of the Rocky Mountains sets CU Boulder apart from any other school in the world!

Tell us about your experience co-leading your lab's AB Nexus project about data-driven COVID policies.

Interestingly, the first mask-wearing and stay-at-home mandates to limit the spread of COVID-19 in the United States were issued precisely the week I moved to Colorado – and one week before my start date at CU Boulder. As for many of us, this majorly impacted my life and my initial months as a researcher at CU Boulder. Because my postdoc started entirely remotely, I had not met any of my labmates or other CU personnel in person for over a year. Though these initial months were very challenging for me, they also served as a great inspiration to utilize some of the mathematics we had developed at CU Boulder to study the spread of COVID-19 in Colorado. The project explored how the state of Colorado could safely relax social restrictions, such as mask mandates, limits on indoor dining, and a range of other restrictions. Since the conceptualization of this research topic, my advisor at CU Boulder, Prof. Emiliano Dall'Anese, immediately and consistently showed his strong support for this initiative. It was only thanks to Prof. Dall’Anese’s help and effort that I had the opportunity to collaborate with epidemiologists at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus (Dr. Andrea G. Buchwald and Prof. Elizabeth J. Carlton). Today, I am very proud to say that, at the beginning of 2021, our work in Scientific Reports correctly predicted that a return to normal would not have been safe until the early months of 2022!

You’ve had some impressive research accomplishments already in your career. Is there one that you’re particularly proud of, or something that you want to continue working on as you start your own lab?

Thank you! Several of my recent works stem from one of my projects that focuses on furthering the transition towards energy sustainability in human societies via sustainable transportation. Sustainable transportation refers to the outstanding challenge of seamlessly integrating transportation systems (e.g., public transport, networks of highways, mobility on demand systems, etc.) with renewable energy resources (e.g., solar power, wind power, etc.) with the goal of bringing global energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to net zero. During the past two years at CU Boulder, together with my postdoc advisor Prof. Dall’Anese, we have created a framework called Online Optimization for Feedback Control that I believe has the potential to achieve these goals. This framework, constructed by combining techniques from control systems and optimization theory, encompasses an emerging class of control techniques that can help us effectively coordinate complex and heterogeneous systems such as the power grid and modern transportation systems.

As you start your faculty career, what impact do you hope to have, either on students or your research field (or both)?

To me, being an academic researcher and an educator is a challenging and yet very rewarding responsibility because of the huge potential for impact on future generations of individuals and engineers. In order to make the most impact that I can on my students, I aim to be an effective, engaging, and inspiring educator as I start my position as an assistant professor at UC Louvain, Belgium. Throughout my education, I have observed the differences between my more and less effective teachers. In reflection, I have come to realize that effective teaching relies on three main qualities: expertise (in the subject area), dedication, and most importantly passion for the subject and field. Because of this, one of my main goals as an educator is to be capable of communicating my passion to new generations of engineers and scientists.

At the same time, I strive to have an impact on the research field of control theory. I am mesmerized by how much the field has changed in the past 60 years. In the late 1960s, controls systems were enabling the flight of spacecraft for the first time in human history; now, control systems have achieved whole new frontiers and are adopted worldwide at a societal scale. Looking ahead, I would like to push the capabilities of this field even further!

Gianluca Bianchin spent two years as a postdoctoral researcher at CU Boulder before starting his first faculty position at Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium this fall.

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PhD student receives competitive Department of Defense fellowship

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Jul 2022 15:53:46 +0000

PhD student receives competitive Department of Defense fellowship Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/11/2022 - 09:53

Electrical engineering PhD student Michelle Pirrone has won a prestigious Department of Defense fellowship for her promising research in microwave engineering and machine learning.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowships provide three years of funding for tuition and fees, as well as a monthly stipend and travel budget. The DoD awards approximately 500 fellowships each year to students across the country.

We asked Pirrone to share some thoughts on her journey in electrical engineering and advice for those considering a PhD path.

How did you originally choose to study electrical engineering?

I originally started as a mechanical engineering major in my undergrad but had an electrical engineering professor recruit me for research on antennas and 3D printing. I thought it would be a good opportunity to try something new, so I gave it a shot and loved working on microwaves engineering so much that I switched majors and decided to continue with the work in my PhD.

What made you decide to pursue your PhD at CU Boulder?

After working on the antenna research in undergrad, I felt that I had only just scratched the surface with microwaves engineering and really wanted to learn more and try to solve many of the questions or problems I had encountered in my original research. When I came to CU Boulder for visit week, it was my first time in Colorado, and I fell in love with the region. Both the professors and the students in the microwaves program were very welcoming and worked well together, which was a camaraderie that I had not seen at any other program. I decided then to take the leap, not only with going for a PhD, but also moving across the country to Colorado.

Tell us about the project you’re working on now. What do you find most interesting or satisfying about the work?

I am currently working on integrating machine learning techniques into microwaves systems that change in real time. As the requirements for things like communication systems and reconfigurable networks continue to increase, we are hoping to address these demands by allowing machine learning techniques to dynamically improve system performance as operating conditions vary. I originally started the PhD program working solely on microwave design, but I love the challenge of having to work on two very technical and different topics as microwaves engineering and machine learning are. Not many people have tried to put these topics together before like we are doing, and the projects are forcing me to take new approaches to problems in totally different ways than I would never have had to before.

What is your favorite part about working with your faculty co-advisors, Taylor Barton and Emiliano Dall’Anese?

Both of my advisors have been really great about being open-minded and giving me the room to make some of my own decisions and choices as we work on projects. However, I also always feel like they are there for me when I need support or am stuck on a part of my research and don't know how to continue. I believe we have struck up a really good balance of independence and mentorship, and the three of us work very well on capitalizing on each other's strengths for the research.

What’s next after you finish your PhD?

I still have a few years to go before finishing my PhD, and I like to always keep my opportunities open until it's time to make the final decision. I think I am currently considering going into industry to get some new experience after spending several years in the academic sphere, but only time will tell.

What advice would you give students considering pursuing their PhD?

For most of my time in undergrad, getting a PhD was not on my radar. It wasn't until I found a topic of interest that I really enjoyed that I started to seriously consider graduate school. And even though I work on totally different topics than I did in my undergrad research, there has always been a level of engagement with my work in which I always had been asking questions on if something was possible or how something worked, and now I could actually answer these questions that no one had before. Getting a PhD requires always trying to solve problems or innovate, and I think anyone considering getting a PhD needs to ask themselves if they will enjoy both the frustrations and the satisfaction that comes with forging their own path forward on things no one has really done before.

Do you have any hobbies you’d like to share?

As probably a large portion of Colorado shares, I love being outdoors and in particular love hiking. It's amazing to me how many beautiful hikes are such a short drive away from this area, and I really like doing long hikes that get you far away from the typical hustle bustle of our everyday lives. In addition to that, I really like to cook and try to make foods I've tried at restaurants at home and also like to weight lift.

Anything else you want readers to know about you or your work?

I really didn't expect to be where I am in my life right now or working on what I do, but I took some chances on trying new things along the way, and I'm hoping to continue to push the limits in my research of what's out there now and what we can accomplish.

Michelle Pirrone has won a prestigious National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate (NDSEG) Fellowship for her promising research in microwave engineering and machine learning.

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Inspired by palm trees, scientists develop hurricane-resilient wind turbines

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Jun 2022 19:17:15 +0000

Inspired by palm trees, scientists develop hurricane-resilient wind turbines Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/15/2022 - 13:17

CU researchers have presented results from a new study of four years of real-world data from testing their 53.38 kilowatt demonstrator at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s Flatirons Campus, just south of Boulder.

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Poveda earns CAREER award for data-assisted control research

Anonymous — Mon, 11 Apr 2022 19:48:52 +0000

Poveda earns CAREER award for data-assisted control research Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/11/2022 - 13:48

Emily Adams

Data is everywhere in today’s world.

Assistant Professor Jorge Poveda has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award that will allow him to explore how all of that data can be used to control systems — from robotic networks to the power grid.

Poveda explained that data-assisted control has become a relevant topic as machine learning has become more and more ubiquitous.

“The question is, can we systematically incorporate this data into our controllers to perhaps improve the performance of the system or be able to achieve something that is unachievable without data,” he said. “If I'm using elements from machine learning that incorporate real-time and recorded data, how can I incorporate these elements into my controllers to overcome fundamental limitations of model-based approaches?”

Specifically, Poveda plans to look at data-assisted control in non-smooth dynamical systems — an area that requires more research to create robust, stable systems with high-performance guarantees.

“The question is not easy because most of the results in the data-driven control literature rely on smoothness in some sense,” Poveda said. “They exploit smoothness in the controller to obtain robustness guarantees and stability guarantees.”

While he intends to start by developing models for data-assisted switching controllers, which switch between sub-algorithms to achieve better performance, he also plans to extend those results to networks and multi-agent systems.

“In large-scale networks, we cannot ask that every node of the network has access to unlimited data, but that data is going to be distributed between the different nodes,” he said. “The question becomes how should these nodes talk to each other? How should they share their data in real time while preserving closed-loop stability of the underlying dynamical systems?”

Poveda is also interested in incorporating insights from game theory. He explained that in many societal engineering systems, decision-makers can have conflicting interests. He wants to explore whether it’s possible for one agent to dynamically manipulate its data at the expense of others.

“There are many important questions there because we envision that in the future, many engineering systems will follow these types of rules,” he said.

He used the example of transportation systems and energy markets. Experts envision that during the next decade, people are going to be able to buy and sell energy to the power grid based on their transportation needs.

“So now we have these competitive markets with potentially adversarial behaviors such as collusions between some buyers and sellers,” he said. “If we have companies or users implementing data-driven or learning-based algorithms to update their actions, how robust will these algorithms be to adversarial data that is dynamically manipulated by deceptive entities with ‘inside’ information?”

Poveda and his graduate students are also eager to share their control systems knowledge with the next generation of diverse STEM students. As part of the CAREER proposal, they are planning several activities to recruit, mentor and retain students from underrepresented backgrounds, including K-12 summer camps, Discovery Learning Apprenticeships and an annual regional workshop on control.

The lab members will start by participating in an NSF science communication workshop to learn more about making the complicated subject accessible to those outside the field, Poveda said.

“I think it's exciting that the students in my group are going to be involved,” he said. “Those are skills they can use in the future, and mentorship is something that we value a lot.”

CAREER awards provide approximately $500,000 over five years for junior faculty members “who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization.” Six faculty members from the College of Engineering and Applied Science received NSF CAREER Awards in 2022.

Assistant professor plans to explore how all of machine learning and other data can be used to control systems — from robotic networks to the power grid.

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Poveda earns Air Force Young Investigator award for 2022

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Nov 2021 16:39:58 +0000

Poveda earns Air Force Young Investigator award for 2022 Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/23/2021 - 09:39

Emily Adams

An illustration from one of Poveda's journal papers, showing a group of vehicles seeking the source of a signal, under the presence of the obstacle N. For a smooth control law, the set M represents the points where small perturbations can prevent the agents from converging to the source.

Assistant Professor Jorge Poveda is one of 36 researchers across the U.S. to receive a Young Investigator Research Program grant from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research for 2022.

The program’s goal is to “foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering,” according to the AFOSR.

The grants provide $450,000 over three years. Poveda said his team will use their funds to develop more efficient and resilient feedback control algorithms for systems operating in dynamic and uncertain environments, with applications in areas such as cybersecurity, unmanned vehicles and cyber-physical systems.

The systems they’re studying – known as stochastic hybrid dynamical systems – can be particularly challenging to control. Poveda gave the example of a team of autonomous robots or vehicles, working collaboratively to achieve a common task, such as finding or tracking a particular target or location.

“We can control these systems by using algorithms with multiple time scales, where a ‘fast’ controller coordinates the vehicles’ position to achieve a particular formation, and a ‘slow’ controller moves the formation towards the desired target,” he explained.

But what happens when that system encounters real-world obstacles and disturbances that it wasn’t expecting?

“We would like to understand how fragile or robust these multi-time scale controllers are with respect to stochastic environments or adversarial entities, including situations where the sensors or communication networks are corrupted or jammed with a certain probability,” Poveda said.

He said his team’s goal is to develop mathematical tools that will allow them to predict the stability of the controllers by studying “simpler” stochastic sub-systems that provide a good approximation of the behavior of the original controller. They will also use what they learn to design novel ways to overcome some of the fundamental limitations of deterministic hybrid control systems in the context of adaptive and model-free feedback-based optimization algorithms.

“The tools developed in this project will naturally allow us to answer these types of questions using hybrid control theoretic methods, thus improving our abilities to guarantee efficient, safe, and robust autonomy in many engineering systems that operate in highly uncertain and dynamic environments,” Poveda said. “Our group has substantial experience in these domains, and this grant will allow us to leverage this experience to design more resilient and efficient control systems for complex tasks that require real-time adaptation with stability guarantees.”

Learn more about Poveda's research

Assistant professor will use the grant to develop more efficient and resilient feedback control algorithms for systems operating in dynamic and uncertain environments.

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Xudong Chen recognized as national leader in field of automatic control

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 20:46:33 +0000

Xudong Chen recognized as national leader in field of automatic control Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 08/05/2021 - 14:46

Emily Adams

Assistant Professor Xudong Chen

Assistant Professor Xudong Chen has been recognized with the Donald P. Eckman Award, one of the most prestigious honors in the engineering discipline-spanning field of automatic control.

Chen earned the award for his “contributions to control, estimation and analysis of large-scale multi-agent systems, including ensemble control theory, ensemble estimation theory, ensemble system identification and networked control theory,” according to the American Automatic Control Council, which grants the award.

Chen said he feels fortunate to get to pursue his research interests in the mathematical frameworks of ensemble control, which has applications in quantum spin systems, biological systems, unmanned aerial vehicles and robotics.

“Ensemble control is an emerging research area and is still under active development,” he said. “I look forward to making more contributions to the area and to establishing various collaborations with my colleagues on relevant topics.”

The award was announced during the 2021 American Control Conference, sponsored by the AACC and held virtually in May. The council is planning to host an in-person award ceremony next year, and Chen has been invited to give a plenary talk at next year’s American Control Conference.

Chen was also one of three ECEE faculty members to receive an National Science Foundation CAREER Award for 2021 – one of the NSF’s highest honors for young faculty members.

“Professor Chen’s research, which focuses on rigorous mathematical modeling and control system theory, has the potential for substantial impact on the performance of large, complex, networked systems,” said Chris Myers, chair of the Department of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering. “We’re very lucky to have him as part of our research and teaching community.”

Chen earned his BS in electronic engineering from Tsinghua University in Beijing and his PhD in electrical engineering from Harvard University. In addition to the Eckman and CAREER awards, he is also an awardee of the 2020 Air Force Young Investigator Program. His current research interests are in the areas of control theory, stochastic processes, optimization and game theory and their applications in modeling, analysis, control and estimation of large-scale complex systems.

Chen is not the first CU Boulder faculty member to receive the Eckman Award. Recent recipients also include former ECEE faculty members Behrouz Touri and Jason Marden.

The AACC is an association of the control systems divisions of nine member societies, including IEEE, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, the American Society of Civil Engineers and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

Assistant professor recognized with the Donald P. Eckman Award, one of the most prestigious honors in the engineering discipline-spanning field of automatic control.

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International collaboration explores ways to improve wind turbine operation

Anonymous — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 15:59:24 +0000

International collaboration explores ways to improve wind turbine operation Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/26/2021 - 09:59

PhD candidate Misha Sinner discusses his paper summarizing findings from a partnership that tested a control method on a model wind turbine operating in a state-of-the-art wind tunnel.

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By combining machine learning and control theory, Poveda expands field of autonomy

Anonymous — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 19:08:48 +0000

By combining machine learning and control theory, Poveda expands field of autonomy Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/12/2021 - 13:08

Assistant professor has been working for years to improve the ways autonomous systems overcome problems they encounter on the job.

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