Control, Safety and Security of Dynamical Network Systems

Modern systems are complex and composed of networks of coupled subsystems. Examples include water distribution networks, innovative transportation systems, power networks, smart buildings and even social networks. In these systems, everything is interconnected and possibly connected to the Internet. This opens the way to exciting technological opportunities, but represents also a fundamental challenge in terms of safety and security. In fact, when these systems fail, due to human errors, accidents, faults or intentional malicious attacks, the consequences can be tremendous. Safety and security are therefore key requirements. The PhD student will conduct multi-disciplinary research on complex dynamical systems characterised by i) a large number of states and input points, spatially distributed; ii) an interconnected structure that can be modelled as a network of agents or subsystems; iii) the presence of communication networks at different levels. The objective is to develop new control methods for these systems to guarantee safety, security and resilience. The behaviour of dynamical network systems will be analysed, especially in the case that the presence of unexpected anomalies, such as faults or cyber-attacks, are deviating it from the nominal one. The PhD student will investigate the opportunity to integrate automatic control techniques with statistical and machine learning tools, exploiting the network structure of the systems. The student will focus on the microgrid application and will test and validate the developed methods on a microgrid model.