Seminar: Real-Time Hybrid System Identification for CPS Security and Control

Abstract: The increasingly growing integration of intelligent autonomous systems in modern society is calling for new advancements in cyber-physical systems that can learn, adapt, and reason. Towards this goal, we will investigate the frontiers of real-time hybrid system identification, where the systems are described by both discrete and continuous dynamics. We will formally analyze the notion of progressive learning; an adaptive process that hierarchically approximates the solution of an optimal decision-making problem given observations of a system and its environment. In particular, we will introduce the Online Deterministic Annealing (ODA) approach as a gradient-free stochastic optimization method to identify the mode switches of a hybrid system in real-time. We will study the properties of robustness and interpretability and the significance of controlling the performance-complexity trade-off through an intuitive bifurcation phenomenon. Finally, we will discuss a wide range of applications, from data-driven nonlinear control to communication-aware motion planning and cyber-physical systems security.

Bio: Christos Mavridis received his Ph.D. in electrical and computer engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park in 2021. His research interests include control theory, system identification, stochastic optimization, learning theory, multi-agent systems, and robotics. He is currently a postdoctoral research associate at KTH Royal Institute of Technology where he leads a 2-year SSF project in collaboration with Ericsson AB. He has also worked as a researcher for the Math and Algorithms Research Group at Nokia Bell Labs, NJ, and the System Sciences Lab at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), CA. Dr. Mavridis has received several fellowships and awards, including the Best Student Paper Award (1st place) in the IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC), 2021, and the Ann G. Wylie Dissertation Fellowship in 2021. He has also been a finalist in the Qualcomm Innovation Fellowship US, San Diego, CA, in 2018.