Pierre Rouchon

Bio: Pierre Rouchon is an academic researcher from PSL Research University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Flatness (systems theory) & Controllability. The author has an hindex of 49, co-authored 353 publications receiving 11945 citations. Previous affiliations of Pierre Rouchon include Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University & Toshiba.

Flatness and defect of non-linear systems: introductory theory and examples

Abstract: We introduce flat systems, which are equivalent to linear ones via a special type of feedback called endogenous. Their physical properties are subsumed by a linearizing output and they might be regarded as providing another nonlinear extension of Kalman's controllability. The distance to flatness is measured by a non-negative integer, the defect. We utilize differential algebra where flatness- and defect are best defined without distinguishing between input, state, output and other variables. Many realistic classes of examples are flat. We treat two popular ones: the crane and the car with n trailers, the motion planning of which is obtained via elementary properties of plane curves. The three non-flat examples, the simple, double and variable length pendulums, are borrowed from non-linear physics. A high frequency control strategy is proposed such that the averaged systems become flat.

A Lie-Backlund approach to equivalence and flatness of nonlinear systems

Abstract: A new system equivalence relation, using the framework of differential geometry of jets and prolongations of infinite order, is studied. In this setting, two systems are said to be equivalent if any variable of one system may be expressed as a function of the variables of the other system and of a finite number of their time derivatives. This is a Lie-Backlund isomorphism. The authors prove that, although the state dimension is not preserved, the number of input channels is kept fixed. They also prove that a Lie-Backlund isomorphism can be realized by an endogenous feedback. The differentially flat nonlinear systems introduced by the authors (1992) via differential algebraic techniques, are generalized and the new notion of orbitally flat systems is defined. They correspond to systems which are equivalent to a trivial one, with time preservation or not. The endogenous linearizing feedback is explicitly computed in the case of the VTOL aircraft to track given reference trajectories with stability.

Real-time quantum feedback prepares and stabilizes photon number states

Abstract: Feedback loops are central to most classical control procedures A controller compares the signal measured by a sensor (system output) with the target value or set-point It then adjusts an actuator (system input) to stabilize the signal around the target value Generalizing this scheme to stabilize a micro-system's quantum state relies on quantum feedback, which must overcome a fundamental difficulty: the sensor measurements cause a random back-action on the system An optimal compromise uses weak measurements, providing partial information with minimal perturbation The controller should include the effect of this perturbation in the computation of the actuator's operation, which brings the incrementally perturbed state closer to the target Although some aspects of this scenario have been experimentally demonstrated for the control of quantum or classical micro-system variables, continuous feedback loop operations that permanently stabilize quantum systems around a target state have not yet been realized Here we have implemented such a real-time stabilizing quantum feedback scheme following a method inspired by ref 13 It prepares on demand photon number states (Fock states) of a microwave field in a superconducting cavity, and subsequently reverses the effects of decoherence-induced field quantum jumps The sensor is a beam of atoms crossing the cavity, which repeatedly performs weak quantum non-demolition measurements of the photon number The controller is implemented in a real-time computer commanding the actuator, which injects adjusted small classical fields into the cavity between measurements The microwave field is a quantum oscillator usable as a quantum memory or as a quantum bus swapping information between atoms Our experiment demonstrates that active control can generate non-classical states of this oscillator and combat their decoherence, and is a significant step towards the implementation of complex quantum information operations

Flatness, motion planning and trailer systems

Abstract: A solution of the motion planning without obstacles for the standard a-trailer system is proposed This solution relies basically on the fact that the system is flat with the Cartesian coordinates of the last trailer as a linearizing output The Frenet formulae are used to simplify the calculations and permit to deal with angle constraints The general 1-trailer system, where the trailer is not directly hitched to the car at the center of the rear axle, is also flat The geometric construction used for the standard 1-trailer system can be extended to this more realistic system MATLAB simulations illustrate this method >

Symmetry-Preserving Observers

Abstract: This paper presents the theory of invariant observers, i.e, symmetry-preserving observers. We consider an observer to consist of a copy of the system and a correction term, and we propose a constructive method (based on the Cartan moving-frame method) to find all the symmetry-preserving correction terms. The construction relies on an invariant frame (a classical notion) and on an invariant output-error, a less standard notion precisely defined here. Using the theory we build three non-linear observers for three examples of engineering interest: a non-holonomic car, a chemical reactor, and an inertial navigation system. For each example, the design is based on physical symmetries and the convergence analysis relies on the use of invariant state-errors, a symmetry-preserving way to define the estimation error.

I and i

Abstract: There is, I think, something ethereal about i —the square root of minus one. I remember first hearing about it at school. It seemed an odd beast at that time—an intruder hovering on the edge of reality. Usually familiarity dulls this sense of the bizarre, but in the case of i it was the reverse: over the years the sense of its surreal nature intensified. It seemed that it was impossible to write mathematics that described the real world in …

Planning Algorithms: Introductory Material

Abstract: Planning algorithms are impacting technical disciplines and industries around the world, including robotics, computer-aided design, manufacturing, computer graphics, aerospace applications, drug design, and protein folding. This coherent and comprehensive book unifies material from several sources, including robotics, control theory, artificial intelligence, and algorithms. The treatment is centered on robot motion planning but integrates material on planning in discrete spaces. A major part of the book is devoted to planning under uncertainty, including decision theory, Markov decision processes, and information spaces, which are the “configuration spaces” of all sensor-based planning problems. The last part of the book delves into planning under differential constraints that arise when automating the motions of virtually any mechanical system. Developed from courses taught by the author, the book is intended for students, engineers, and researchers in robotics, artificial intelligence, and control theory as well as computer graphics, algorithms, and computational biology.

Convergence of probability measures

Abstract: The author's preface gives an outline: "This book is about weakconvergence methods in metric spaces, with applications sufficient to show their power and utility. The Introduction motivates the definitions and indicates how the theory will yield solutions to problems arising outside it. Chapter 1 sets out the basic general theorems, which are then specialized in Chapter 2 to the space C[0, l ] of continuous functions on the unit interval and in Chapter 3 to the space D [0, 1 ] of functions with discontinuities of the first kind. The results of the first three chapters are used in Chapter 4 to derive a variety of limit theorems for dependent sequences of random variables. " The book develops and expands on Donsker's 1951 and 1952 papers on the invariance principle and empirical distributions. The basic random variables remain real-valued although, of course, measures on C[0, l ] and D[0, l ] are vitally used. Within this framework, there are various possibilities for a different and apparently better treatment of the material. More of the general theory of weak convergence of probabilities on separable metric spaces would be useful. Metrizability of the convergence is not brought up until late in the Appendix. The close relation of the Prokhorov metric and a metric for convergence in probability is (hence) not mentioned (see V. Strassen, Ann. Math. Statist. 36 (1965), 423-439; the reviewer, ibid. 39 (1968), 1563-1572). This relation would illuminate and organize such results as Theorems 4.1, 4.2 and 4.4 which give isolated, ad hoc connections between weak convergence of measures and nearness in probability. In the middle of p. 16, it should be noted that C*(S) consists of signed measures which need only be finitely additive if 5 is not compact. On p. 239, where the author twice speaks of separable subsets having nonmeasurable cardinal, he means "discrete" rather than "separable." Theorem 1.4 is Ulam's theorem that a Borel probability on a complete separable metric space is tight. Theorem 1 of Appendix 3 weakens completeness to topological completeness. After mentioning that probabilities on the rationals are tight, the author says it is an

Flatness and defect of non-linear systems: introductory theory and examples

Abstract: We introduce flat systems, which are equivalent to linear ones via a special type of feedback called endogenous. Their physical properties are subsumed by a linearizing output and they might be regarded as providing another nonlinear extension of Kalman's controllability. The distance to flatness is measured by a non-negative integer, the defect. We utilize differential algebra where flatness- and defect are best defined without distinguishing between input, state, output and other variables. Many realistic classes of examples are flat. We treat two popular ones: the crane and the car with n trailers, the motion planning of which is obtained via elementary properties of plane curves. The three non-flat examples, the simple, double and variable length pendulums, are borrowed from non-linear physics. A high frequency control strategy is proposed such that the averaged systems become flat.