Dr. Mauricio C. de Oliveira

The design of feedback controllers that are asked to satisfy structural constraints remains as challenging a problem today as it was decades ago. Whereas there has been significant advance in the techniques to analyze stability of feedback systems, with polynomial relaxations extending and unifying many robustness and stability results and pushing the envelope of the class of problems that could be considered solved, design problems continue to challenge systems and control researchers and practitioners. In this talk, we will revisit various problems in robust, gain scheduling and structured control. Along the way, we will establish connections among various forms of constraints and associated notions of stabilities. We will conclude with the introduction of some new tools that hold the promise of unifying two of the competing frameworks for controller design by reformulating the Youla parametrization of all stabilizing controllers in the form of linear matrix inequalities.

Biography:

Dr. Mauricio C. de Oliveira is an Adjunct Professor at the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, CA, teaching and conducting research in the area of Optimization, Dynamic Systems and Control. He concluded his Ph.D. in 1999, M. S. in 1996 and B. S. in 1995, all in Electrical Engineering from the University of Campinas, Brazil. Prior to joining UCSD he was an Assistant Professor at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Campinas, SP, Brazil from 2001 to 2003. From 2005 to 2006 he was the Chief Research Engineer at Dynamic Systems Research, Inc., San Diego, CA, where he led a large team on the development of an energy harvesting station keeping sea drogue. Since 2008, he has worked as a consultant to one of the worlds' largest sovereign wealth funds in the area of portfolio optimization. He has also worked as a consultant for Cymer ‐ an ASML company, and in research and development with Solar Turbines ‐ a Caterpillar company.