{"title":"A Flight-to-Safety Principle for Cost-Sensitive Distributionally Robust Log-Optimal Portfolio","authors":"Chung-Han Hsieh;Xiao-Rou Yu","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3695113","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3695113","url":null,"abstract":"This letter investigates how distributional ambiguity interacts with transaction costs in a log-optimal portfolio control formulation. Return ambiguity is modeled by a 1-Wasserstein ball centered at the empirical distribution, and trading frictions are incorporated via a convex, positively homogeneous transaction cost function applied at each rebalance. We establish a flight-to-safety principle: as trading frictions rise, the critical ambiguity radius—the smallest radius beyond which the optimizer retreats entirely to the risk-free asset—weakly decreases. Rolling-window experiments on S&P 500 constituents illustrate this mechanism, showing that higher transaction costs systematically shift the robust allocation toward the risk-free asset.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"379-384"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148486079","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Roman Chertovskih;Nikolay Pogodaev;Maxim Staritsyn;A. Pedro Aguiar
{"title":"Exact Cost-Increment Formula for Optimal Control of Semilinear Evolution Equations","authors":"Roman Chertovskih;Nikolay Pogodaev;Maxim Staritsyn;A. Pedro Aguiar","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3710253","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3710253","url":null,"abstract":"We address optimal control of semilinear evolution equations on Banach spaces with finitely many control channels, a framework encompassing many infinite-dimensional dynamical systems arising in applications. For this setting, we derive an exact and global formula quantifying the increment of the cost functional with respect to an arbitrary reference control. This identity enables the design of monotone descent algorithms that require no linearization or step-size tuning. We establish the existence of optimal controls and propose a practical sample-and-hold realization of the descent step. The effectiveness of the method is demonstrated on a controlled reaction–diffusion equation.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"1525-1530"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148486106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Decoy-Assisted Evasion Against a Pure-Pursuit Pursuer: Analysis and Strategy Design","authors":"Yi Wang;Zehua Zhao;Rui Yan;Xiaoming Duan","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3705295","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3705295","url":null,"abstract":"This letter investigates a three-agent pursuit-evasion problem involving a pursuer, an evader, and a mobile decoy. The decoy is equipped with a jamming device that conceals the exact location of the evader, and the evader must remain within a certain distance from the decoy for the concealment to be effective. The pursuer has access only to the real-time location of the decoy and employs a pure pursuit strategy toward it. We formulate this scenario as a state-constrained optimal control problem in which the evader-decoy coalition seeks to maximize the capture time through cooperative strategies. We first show that indefinite evasion for the evader is possible and construct an explicit evader-decoy cooperative strategy to achieve it. We then establish sufficient conditions for guaranteed finite-time capture and derive an upper bound on the capture time. Numerical simulations validate the effectiveness of the proposed methodologies.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"1003-1008"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148486331","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Gilberto Díaz-García;Keith Paarporn;Jason R. Marden
{"title":"Incentive Design in Competitive Resource Allocation: Exploiting Valuation Asymmetry in Tullock Contests","authors":"Gilberto Díaz-García;Keith Paarporn;Jason R. Marden","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3710806","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3710806","url":null,"abstract":"In competitive resource allocation, a central coordinator may seek to gain an advantage not by directly controlling subordinate agents, but by strategically manipulating the information they receive. We study this problem within the framework of multi-player Tullock contests, where the coordinator influences subordinate players by designing their reported valuations of the contested prize, a mechanism that preserves the Tullock structure of the subordinates’ objectives and thereby enables tractable equilibrium analysis. We first characterize the Nash equilibrium of the general multi-player Tullock contest, establishing how valuations and per-unit costs jointly determine equilibrium bids and payoffs. We then derive the optimal reported valuations for a coordinator managing two subordinates against a single opponent, and show that the structure of the optimal solution extends to contests with an arbitrary number of subordinates, reducing the coordinator’s optimization to a two-variable problem regardless of system size.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"1747-1752"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148487003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"ADMM–EKI: Principled Refinement With Local Guarantees for Constrained Nonlinear MPC","authors":"Ahmed Khalil;Efstathios Bakolas","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3710135","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3710135","url":null,"abstract":"This work studies constrained nonlinear model predictive control using ADMM with a derivative-free EKI inner solver in deterministic square-root form. The motivation is to obtain a principled zero-order refinement mechanism for sampling-based MPC: the Kalman update contracts the ensemble through residual-informed covariances and resembles a Gauss–Newton refinement under local linearization. Building on an earlier ADMM–EKI formulation that used heuristic scheduling and was empirically validated, this work develops a fixed-schedule variant and analyzes the resulting inexact outer iteration. The main contribution is an explicit inner forcing rule linking the EKI refinement budget to the ADMM tolerance sequence; under stated local assumptions, this yields augmented-Lagrangian descent up to summable error, residual convergence, and KKT characterization of accumulation points.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"1645-1650"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148487516","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andreas Oliveira;Arya Honarpisheh;Mustafa Bozdag;Mario Sznaier
{"title":"Time-Varying Perturbations of Contractive Systems With an Application to Safe Stabilization","authors":"Andreas Oliveira;Arya Honarpisheh;Mustafa Bozdag;Mario Sznaier","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3701872","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3701872","url":null,"abstract":"Perturbation theory for asymptotically stable systems has received sustained attention, leading to many criteria that preserve stability under uncertainty. A limitation of classical stability analysis, however, is that it is inherently equilibrium-dependent. Contractive systems, by contrast, are defined independently of any equilibrium and admit a rich set of robustness bounds. In this letter, we develop new time-varying perturbation conditions for contractive dynamics that preserve incremental exponential stability of the perturbed system and, in specific regimes, guarantee asymptotic convergence to solutions of the nominal dynamics. As an application, we propose a safety filter for steering a nominally contractive system to a desired equilibrium while avoiding an unsafe set, and we present an example illustrating advantages of the proposed method over existing approaches.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"673-678"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148482647","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"State-Constrained Optimal Control via Barrier-Coordinate Transformation","authors":"S. M. Nahid Mahmud;Shaoshuai Mou","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3708615","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3708615","url":null,"abstract":"In this work, we address the open-loop optimal control of nonlinear systems subject to hard state constraints. Classical Pontryagin-based formulations typically require a multi-regime approach, requiring the discovery of boundary entry and exit times through complex hybrid switching logic and costate jump conditions. We propose a geometric reformulation using a barrier-coordinate transformation (BCT) that diffeomorphically maps the interior of a convex safe set onto <inline-formula> <tex-math>$mathbb {R}^{text {n}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. By embedding constraints directly into the system manifold, we derive transformed dynamics on an unconstrained domain that satisfy hard state constraints through an explicitly imposed viability condition. This approach yields a smooth, single-regime optimality system under Pontryagin’s minimum principle (PMP), eliminating the need for boundary arc detection or the manual handling of switching logic. We provide a rigorous bound on the optimality gap, showing it is of order <inline-formula> <tex-math>$mathcal {O}text {(}{1}/gamma text {)}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and vanishes as <inline-formula> <tex-math>$gamma to infty $ </tex-math></inline-formula>, recovering the true constrained optimum in the limit. The framework is validated through a numerical example on a nonlinear oscillator.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"1885-1890"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148485855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Coherent-Feedback Notch Filtering for Purcell Suppression","authors":"Aoi Fujimoto;Hiroyuki Ichihara;Rina Kanamoto","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3706456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3706456","url":null,"abstract":"We study Purcell filtering in dispersive qubit readout from the viewpoint of environmental spectrum shaping. In dispersive readout, stronger coupling between the readout cavity and the external field improves measurement speed, but also enhances Purcell relaxation of the qubit. To address this trade-off, we introduce coherent feedback (CF) into the design of a notch-type Purcell filter. Using Fermi’s golden rule, the Purcell rate is related to the environmental spectrum seen from the qubit, enabling a transfer-function-based analysis of the proposed filter. Under idealized assumptions including lossless components, perfect phase matching, and ideal circulators, the proposed CF filter completely suppresses the Purcell rate at the qubit frequency while preserving the effective coupling near the readout frequency. These results suggest coherent feedback as an alternative design option for Purcell filtering.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"1159-1164"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148487111","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Robust Gaussian Process-Based Sliding Mode Predictive Control for Autonomous Underwater Vehicles: A Short-Horizon Approach","authors":"Run-Zhi Wang;Li-Ying Hao","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3696356","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3696356","url":null,"abstract":"Considering that the computational burden of model predictive control (MPC) mainly arises from the prediction horizon, this letter proposes a short-horizon sliding mode predictive control (SMPC) method for autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). A key innovation lies in the incorporation of a saturation-based sliding mode formulation into both the cost function and the constraints of the optimization problem, which ensures the convergence of sliding mode variables even under a short prediction horizon. To enhance robustness against model uncertainties and external disturbances, a prediction model based on Gaussian process regression (GPR) is incorporated into the SMPC framework, thereby reducing the dependence on highly accurate prior model knowledge through online learning of lumped uncertainty. Furthermore, a tailored terminal weight design is developed to support theoretical stability analysis. Rigorous proof is provided to establish the feasibility and global stability of the closed-loop system. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed controller achieves trajectory tracking with reduced computational complexity.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"463-468"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148171555","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An Application of the Mean Motion Problem to Time-Optimal Control","authors":"Omri Dalin;Alexander Ovseevich;Michael Margaliot","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3685715","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2026.3685715","url":null,"abstract":"We consider time-optimal controls of a controllable linear system. It is well-known that if all the eigenvalues of the matrix describing the linear system dynamics are real then any time-optimal control has a bounded number of switching points, where the bound does not depend on the length of the time interval. Here, we consider the case where the governing matrix has purely imaginary eigenvalues, and show that then, in the generic case, the number of switching points is bounded from below by a linear function of the length of the time interval. The proof is based on relating the switching function in the optimal control problem to the mean motion problem that dates back to Lagrange and was solved by Herman Weyl.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"10 ","pages":"307-312"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147828811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}