From Feng Zhao -- Thanks Feng!

Our session, control and synthesis I, is about theory and tools for analyzing, synthesizing, and verifying multi-modal, switching hybrid systems. we had 4 talks:

• L. Berardi et al.: Control synthesis by exploiting structure of FSM for switching hybrid systems
• M. Easley et al.: System identification using qualitative state/phase space
• F. Zhao et al.: Control verification using phase space partition and iterative refinement
• T. Neller: Control of hybrid systems using AI game tree search techniques

Unlike the more traditional pure analytic approaches to hybrid systems, these four papers all exploit the geometric structures of phase (state) space to some extent in order to address more realistic classes of hybrid systems and gain computational advantage. Taking advantage of the phase-space models requires automated means to characterize and compose phase-space behaviors. In my overview talk at the beginning, i mentioned a few pioneering ideas (Kalman's phase-space analysis and Wang's finite-state cell approximation in the 50's and 60's) and more recent computational approaches in qualitative physics (Sacks' and Yip's programs for identifying qualitative regions of phase space, all developed in the AI field). The session ended with a useful discussion of the practicality of phase-space based methods and computational considerations when dealing with higher-dimensional systems.

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