Proceedings of the ... American Control Conference. American Control Conference最新文献

Control engineering offers a systematic and efficient method to optimize the effectiveness of individually tailored treatment and prevention policies known as adaptive or "just-in-time" behavioral interventions. The nature of these interventions requires assigning dosages at categorical levels, which has been addressed in prior work using Mixed Logical Dynamical (MLD)-based hybrid model predictive control (HMPC) schemes. However, certain requirements of adaptive behavioral interventions that involve sequential decision making have not been comprehensively explored in the literature. This paper presents an extension of the traditional MLD framework for HMPC by representing the requirements of sequential decision policies as mixed-integer linear constraints. This is accomplished with user-specified dosage sequence tables, manipulation of one input at a time, and a switching time strategy for assigning dosages at time intervals less frequent than the measurement sampling interval. A model developed for a gestational weight gain (GWG) intervention is used to illustrate the generation of these sequential decision policies and their effectiveness for implementing adaptive behavioral interventions involving multiple components.

The chronic, relapsing nature of tobacco use represents a major challenge in smoking cessation treatment. Recently, novel intervention paradigms have emerged that seek to adjust treatments over time in order to meet a patient's changing needs. This article demonstrates that Hybrid Model Predictive Control (HMPC) offers an appealing framework for designing these optimized, time-varying smoking cessation interventions. HMPC is a particularly appropriate approach as it recognizes that intervention doses must be assigned in predetermined, discrete units while retaining receding-horizon, constraint-handling, and combined feedback and feedforward capabilities. Specifically, an intervention algorithm is developed here in which counseling and two pharmacotherapies are manipulated to reduce daily smoking and craving levels. The potential usefulness of such an intervention is illustrated through simulated treatment of a quit attempt in a hypothetical patient, which highlights that prioritizing reduction in craving over total daily smoking levels significantly reduces craving levels, suppresses relapse, and successfully rejects time-varying disturbances such as stress, all while adhering to several practical operational constraints and resource use considerations.

This paper develops an optimization method to synthesize trajectories for use in the identification of system parameters. Using widely studied techniques to compute Fisher information based on observations of nonlinear dynamical systems, an infinite-dimensional, projection-based optimization algorithm is formulated to optimize the system trajectory using eigenvalues of the Fisher information matrix as the cost metric. An example of a cart-pendulum simulation demonstrates a significant increase in the Fisher information using the optimized trajectory with decreased parameter variances shown through Monte-Carlo tests and computation of the Cramer-Rao lower bound.

There is good evidence that naltrexone, an opioid antagonist, has a strong neuroprotective role and may be a potential drug for the treatment of fibromyalgia. In previous work, some of the authors used experimental clinical data to identify input-output linear time invariant models that were used to extract useful information about the effect of this drug on fibromyalgia symptoms. Additional factors such as anxiety, stress, mood, and headache, were considered as additive disturbances. However, it seems reasonable to think that these factors do not affect the drug actuation, but only the way in which a participant perceives how the drug actuates on herself. Under this hypothesis the linear time invariant models can be replaced by State-Space Affine Linear Parameter Varying models where the disturbances are seen as a scheduling signal signal only acting at the parameters of the output equation. In this paper a new algorithm for identifying such a model is proposed. This algorithm minimizes a quadratic criterion of the output error. Since the output error is a linear function of some parameters, the Affine Linear Parameter Varying system identification is formulated as a separable nonlinear least squares problem. Likewise other identification algorithms using gradient optimization methods several parameter derivatives are dynamical systems that must be simulated. In order to increase time efficiency a canonical parametrization that minimizes the number of systems to be simulated is chosen. The effectiveness of the algorithm is assessed in a case study where an Affine Parameter Varying Model is identified from the experimental data used in the previous study and compared with the time-invariant model.

In this work, we present a novel method to estimate joint angles and distance traveled by a human while walking. We model the human leg as a two-link revolute robot. Inertial measurement sensors placed on the thigh and shin provide the required measurement inputs. The model and inputs are then used to estimate the desired state parameters associated with forward motion using an extended Kalman filter (EKF). Experimental results with subjects walking in a straight line show that distance walked can be measured with accuracy comparable to a state of the art motion tracking systems. The EKF had an average RMSE of 7 cm over the trials with an average accuracy of greater than 97% for linear displacement.

Excessive gestational weight gain (GWG) represents a major public health issue. In this paper, we pursue a control engineering approach to the problem by applying model predictive control (MPC) algorithms to act as decision policies in the intervention for assigning optimal intervention dosages. The intervention components consist of education, behavioral modification and active learning. The categorical nature of the intervention dosage assignment problem dictates the need for hybrid model predictive control (HMPC) schemes, ultimately leading to improved outcomes. The goal is to design a controller that generates an intervention dosage sequence which improves a participant's healthy eating behavior and physical activity to better control GWG. An improved formulation of self-regulation is also presented through the use of Internal Model Control (IMC), allowing greater flexibility in describing self-regulatory behavior. Simulation results illustrate the basic workings of the model and demonstrate the benefits of hybrid predictive control for optimized GWG adaptive interventions.

We study the effects of noise on the dynamics of a system of coupled self-propelling particles in the case where the coupling is time-delayed, and the delays are discrete and randomly generated. Previous work has demonstrated that the stability of a class of emerging patterns depends upon all moments of the time delay distribution, and predicts their bifurcation parameter ranges. Near the bifurcations of these patterns, noise may induce a transition from one type of pattern to another. We study the onset of these noise-induced swarm re-organizations by numerically simulating the system over a range of noise intensities and for various distributions of the delays. Interestingly, there is a critical noise threshold above which the system is forced to transition from a less organized state to a more organized one. We explore this phenomenon by quantifying this critical noise threshold, and note that transition time between states varies as a function of both the noise intensity and delay distribution.

Data-centric estimation methods such as Model-on-Demand and Direct Weight Optimization form attractive techniques for estimating unknown functions from noisy data. These methods rely on generating a local function approximation from a database of regressors at the current operating point with the process repeated at each new operating point. This paper examines the design of optimal input signals formulated to produce informative data to be used by local modeling procedures. The proposed method specifically addresses the distribution of the regressor vectors. The design is examined for a linear time-invariant system under amplitude constraints on the input. The resulting optimization problem is solved using semidefinite relaxation methods. Numerical examples show the benefits in comparison to a classical PRBS input design.