ISE Welcomes Anatoly Zlotnik

Posted: 

anatoly_zlotnik.jpg
Resilient Control Design – from Biological Rhythms to Energy Infrastructures

Anatoly Zlotnik, Postdoctoral Research Associate

Center for Nonlinear Studies and the Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Friday, March 4, 2016, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm

266 Dreese Labs, 2015 Neil Avenue

Many natural and engineered systems consist of interacting nonlinear dynamical components that exhibit complexities and span scales that challenge our ability to model, optimize, and control them.  Their dynamics, parameters, and interconnections may be problematic to infer, may be subject to intrinsic uncertainty and external noise, and could vary in time on multiple scales.  Despite the associated theoretical and computational challenges, numerous applications require such complex, nonlinear systems to be designed and optimized in ways that are resilient to variability, uncertainty, and disturbances.  I will first describe a control problem involving oscillations that appear in chronobiology and neuroscience.  This concerns the design of global signals that establish and maintain resilient dynamic patterns in a collection of heterogeneous nonlinear oscillators with unobservable state and unknown initial conditions.  I will then discuss the optimization of dynamic flows in large-scale natural gas pipeline networks in order to compensate for variation in the fuel consumption of gas-fired power plants. Recent advances in network modeling and computational algorithms can be leveraged to tractably design intra-day physical and market operations for interdependent electric power and natural gas systems with restrictions on information exchange.  Moreover, the mathematical properties of monotonicity and stability enable compact optimization formulations for solutions that are resilient to uncertainty in magnitude and timing of loads on these systems.

Anatoly Zlotnik obtained his B.Sc and M.Sc. in Systems & Control Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2006, M.Sc. in Applied Mathematics from University of Nebraska – Lincoln in 2009, and Ph.D. in Systems Science and Mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis in 2014.  He is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Nonlinear Studies and the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory.