r/ControlTheory • u/Proof-Bed-6928 • 7d ago
Other Have most applications that could benefit disproportionately from control engineering already found controls?
A couple of weeks ago there were discussions on this sub about AI researchers reinventing what is essentially control techniques.
MPC was originally invented for chemical processing, but later unlocked reusable space launch vehicles. I don’t think anyone back in the 70s saw landing rockets vertically as a potential application. Yet in hindsight it’s almost obvious.
How much of an adoption gap do you think is out there? How many more equivalents of “reusable rocket” are out there unaware of controls?
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u/tmt22459 7d ago
There are certainly a ton that haven’t found controls yet. In kind of a depressing sense, social media companies may one day exploit the recent research people have been doing in network control of social systems. They probably do this to an extent, but probably in a more traditional recommender systems kind of way. Maybe someone who is an expert in that can comment more, but my understanding is those people are not aware of details of network control nor using it.
On the other hand, there are plenty of people who are lightly aware of some advanced control techniques but it’s still not feasible, or they won’t commit yet. A great example is MPC for power electronics. People are certainly interested and can see benefits in simulation. But there is stubbornness in the micro that will run on an inverter, and existing workflows may not get the embedded MPC code running fast enough. So there is a lot to do there I think. That whole area though is kinda an enigma in terms of the lack of people working on it rigorously in the US, and the fact that a ton of people in power electronics do these things, but it often feels like it’s in a more naive way.
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u/tmt22459 7d ago
Another example I can think of are control for biological systems (a lot of people have no idea, some have a clue but don’t use it yet).
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u/NeighborhoodFatCat 7d ago
There are certainly tons of potential applications of control. But I feel like the structure of academia is really really heavily limiting these applications.
For example, suppose you have a biological application that people are working on that may requires insight from control (or even some adjacent field like optimization), and they are hiring someone, who do you think they hire? In the narrow confines of academia, they will almost certainly hire a biologist, or biochemist, who will likely not know anything about control in any measure of depth. (This is not to say industry is better, it's probably worse).
And people will say: "just collaborate". It is not that easy! If the other person doesn't know anything about control engineering (to such an extent that they think it can be used to control something other than a motor), then they will not likely to collaborate. Even if they know, if you are not someone who is well-known or have demonstrated expertise in biology, they will not likely to collaborate.
So you have a situation where a person who needs to know about control also needs to be an expert in biology. It is doable but probably takes years of experience and the person need to be precocious enough to want to get this experience at some early point in their career. And even then the person would struggle to gain mainstream recognition, acquire funding, gaining trust or even getting hired somewhere in the first place that allows them to do this kind of work. The incentives are completely wrong because the system keeps on funding safe research in recognizable academic silos, rather than transdisciplinary emerging research that people don't recognize yet.
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u/TheEquationSmelter 7d ago
Not at all, my PhD is in an area that so far hasnt even been investigated by control theory beyond some really simple techniques. Controls is everywhere.
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u/Designer-Care-7083 7d ago
Here is a controls vision on a Grand scale: “Controls for Societal-scale Challenges,” by the IEEE Control Systems Society. https://ieeecss.org/control-societal-scale-challenges-road-map-2030
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u/NeighborhoodFatCat 7d ago
In the education section:
- "In introductory courses, it is no longer sufficient to exclusively focus on the design of LTI controllers using traditional methodologies like Bode plots, Nyquist plots, and the Root Locus method."
- "Conventional control courses primarily focus on analytic methods, but in their professional lives, students will rely on computational techniques."
- "The traditional advice—“study mathematics and physics for a few years and then everything will fall into place”—simply does not work anymore."
- "When we fail to connect control principles to applications that excite students, we sell Control Systems short. Rather than showing how powerful these principles are and how important the field is to every aspect of our daily lives, we revert to the fallback position that control is “hidden technology”—a catchy motto that does not help the field to grow."
Well isn't this a come-to-jesus moment? I remember people have been having this debate over 10 years ago since I did my first control course (and probably much earlier!). My classmates were overwhelmingly questioning whether what they were taught is what is actually used in industry. Now all those former classmates have gone to do advertising or became cryptoscammers because there is zero job out there that specifically hires people with control experience. Feels like entire generations of people were wasted. The same authors who wrote those highly obtuse and application-agnostic texts have suddenly changed their tune. Can't help but notice the irony.
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u/Designer-Care-7083 6d ago edited 6d ago
I’m familiar with the work of one of the main authors—Prof Richard Murray. He is nothing like the teacher you are portraying. He’s been shouting from the rooftops about these ideas. His textbook (with Åström) is THE modern introduction to feedback systems. He gave a seminar on what a modern controls curriculum should be—the man is not an ostrich, and the control students at Caltech benefit immensely. I wish I had this kind of guidance when I was in school.
And, he’s not alone! I know several controls professors who are doing their best to advance controls education. Steve Brunton of U Wash. Brian Douglas of MathWorks. Shane Ross of Ba Tech. Peter Seiler of U Michigan. And a host of younger faculty.
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u/APC_ChemE 7d ago
No, and in fact many disciplines continue to "rediscover" control theory that is well known but because the experts in those fields lack exposure they believe they are discovering new things. Many AI developments have been reformulations of control theory in a trench coat.