Carlos CANUDAS-DE-WIT lauréat d'une bourse ERC Advanced Grant 2015

Scale-FreeBack is motivated by observation that systems have become far more complex than the analytical tools available for managing them. Systems have many components, communicate with each other, have self-decision-making mechanisms, share an enormous amount of information, and form networks. Research in control systems has challenged some of these features, but not in a very concerted way.  Examples are intelligent traffic systems benefiting from many technical innovations, but traffic lights are far from functioning optimally.

The overall aim of Scale-FreeBack is to develop holistic scale-free control methods of controlling complex network systems in the widest sense, and to set the foundations for a new control theory dealing with complex physical networks with an arbitrary size. Scale-FreeBack envisions to devise a complete, coherent design approach ensuring the scalability of the whole chain (modelling, observation, and control), and not just that of single components.

Specifically, Scale-FreeBack focuses on: developing appropriate mathematical scale-free dynamic modeling approaches for breaking down the complexity of network systems, and then drawing up estimation and control algorithms specifically tailored for use with these models. Scale-FreeBack will also investigate new resilient issues in control which are urgently required because of the increasing connectivity between systems and the external world. Road traffic networks will be used in proof-of-concept studies