{"title":"A Distributed Observer Accommodating a Broad Range of Intermittent Communication Scenarios","authors":"Sunghyun Koo;Jin Gyu Lee;Hyungbo Shim","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583672","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583672","url":null,"abstract":"This paper proposes a distributed observer that utilizes intermittent communication and accommodates a broad range of scenarios, including asynchronous operation, unidirectional communication, packet loss, and communication delays. An analysis over jointly connected switching topology supports this and provides a condition for exponential convergence of the estimation error. This condition can be used to determine a communication rate. The analysis is valid when the unobservable subspace of each agent admits an invariant orthogonal complement. This is a property that is always achievable via a coordinate transformation when the system matrix is diagonalizable over the complex field.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1682-1687"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634680","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":"Constant-Sum High-Order Barrier Functions for Safety Between Parallel Boundaries","authors":"Kwang Hak Kim;Mamadou Diagne;Miroslav Krstić","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583748","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583748","url":null,"abstract":"This letter takes a step towards addressing the difficulty of constructing Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) for parallel safety boundaries. A single CBF for both boundaries has been reported to be difficult to validate for safety, and we identify why this challenge is inherent. To overcome this, the proposed method constructs separate CBFs for each boundary. We begin by presenting results for the relative degree one case and then extend these to higher relative degrees using the CBF backstepping technique, establishing conditions that guarantee safety. Finally, we showcase our method by applying it to a unicycle system, deriving a simple, verifiable condition to validate the target CBFs for direct implementation of our results.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1447-1452"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144606366","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":"A Bi-Level Optimization Method for Redundant Dual-Arm Minimum Time Problems","authors":"Jonathan Fried;Santiago Paternain","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583741","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583741","url":null,"abstract":"In this letter, we present a method for minimizing the time required for a redundant dual-arm robot to follow a desired relative Cartesian path at constant path speed by optimizing its joint trajectories, subject to position, velocity, and acceleration limits. The problem is reformulated as a bi-level optimization whose lower level is a convex, closed-form subproblem that maximizes path speed for a fixed trajectory, while the upper level updates the trajectory using a single-chain kinematic formulation and the subgradient of the lower-level value. Numerical results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1321-1326"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144606316","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":"QSID-MPC: Model Predictive Control With System Identification From Quantized Data","authors":"Shahab Ataei;Dipankar Maity;Debdipta Goswami","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583675","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583675","url":null,"abstract":"Cloud-assisted system identification and control have emerged as practical solutions for low-power, resource-constrained control systems such as micro-UAVs. In a typical cloud-assisted setting, state and input data are transmitted from local agents to a central computer over low-bandwidth wireless links, leading to quantization. This letter investigates the impact of state and input data quantization on system identification and subsequent Model Predictive Controller (MPC). We establish a fundamental relationship between the quantization resolution and the resulting model error, and analyze how this error propagates to affect the stability and boundedness of the MPC tracking error. In particular, we show that, given a sufficiently rich dataset, the model error is bounded as a function of the quantization resolution, and the MPC tracking error is likewise ultimately bounded.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1880-1885"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144687658","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}
Kushagra Gupta;Ross E. Allen;David Fridovich-Keil;Ufuk Topcu
{"title":"More Information Is Not Always Better: Connections Between Zero-Sum Local Nash Equilibria in Feedback and Open-Loop Information Patterns","authors":"Kushagra Gupta;Ross E. Allen;David Fridovich-Keil;Ufuk Topcu","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583329","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583329","url":null,"abstract":"Noncooperative dynamic game theory provides a principled approach to modeling sequential decision-making among multiple noncommunicative agents. A key focus is on finding Nash equilibria in two-agent zero-sum dynamic games under various information structures. A well-known result states that in linear-quadratic games, unique Nash equilibria under feedback and open-loop information structures yield identical trajectories. Motivated by two key perspectives—(i) real-world problems extend beyond linear-quadratic settings and lack unique equilibria, making only local Nash equilibria computable, and (ii) local open-loop Nash equilibria (OLNE) are easier to compute than local feedback Nash equilibria (FBNE)—it is natural to ask whether a similar result holds for local equilibria in zero-sum games. To this end, we establish that for a broad class of zero-sum games with potentially nonconvex-nonconcave objectives and nonlinear dynamics: (i) the state/control trajectory of a local FBNE satisfies local OLNE first-order optimality conditions, and vice versa, (ii) a local FBNE trajectory satisfies local OLNE second-order necessary conditions, (iii) a local FBNE trajectory satisfying feedback sufficiency conditions also constitutes a local OLNE, and (iv) with additional hard constraints on agents’ actuations, a local FBNE where strict complementarity holds satisfies local OLNE first-order optimality conditions, and vice versa.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1405-1410"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144606199","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}
Mohammad Al-Jarrah;Bamdad Hosseini;Amirhossein Taghvaei
{"title":"Fast Filtering of Non-Gaussian Models Using Amortized Optimal Transport Maps","authors":"Mohammad Al-Jarrah;Bamdad Hosseini;Amirhossein Taghvaei","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583326","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583326","url":null,"abstract":"In this letter, we present the amortized optimal transport filter (A-OTF) designed to mitigate the computational burden associated with the real-time training of optimal transport filters (OTFs). OTFs can perform accurate non-Gaussian Bayesian updates in the filtering procedure, but they require training at every time step, which makes them expensive. The proposed A-OTF framework exploits the similarity between OTF maps during an initial/offline training stage in order to reduce the cost of inference during online calculations. More precisely, we use clustering algorithms to select relevant subsets of pre-trained maps whose weighted average is used to compute the A-OTF model akin to a mixture of experts. A series of numerical experiments validate that A-OTF achieves substantial computational savings during online inference while preserving the inherent flexibility and accuracy of OTF.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1670-1675"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634772","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":"Modular Distributed Nonconvex Learning With Error Feedback","authors":"Guido Carnevale;Nicola Bastianello","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3582677","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3582677","url":null,"abstract":"In this letter, we design a novel distributed learning algorithm using stochastic compressed communications. In detail, we pursue a modular approach, merging ADMM and a gradient-based approach, benefiting from the robustness of the former and the computational efficiency of the latter. Additionally, we integrate a stochastic integral action (error feedback) enabling almost sure rejection of the compression error. We analyze the resulting method in nonconvex scenarios and guarantee almost sure asymptotic convergence to the set of stationary points of the problem. This result is obtained using system-theoretic tools based on stochastic timescale separation. We corroborate our findings with numerical simulations in nonconvex classification.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1604-1609"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634829","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":"Derandomizing Simultaneous Confidence Regions for Band-Limited Functions by Improved Norm Bounds and Majority-Voting Schemes","authors":"Balázs Csanád Csáji;Bálint Horváth","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3583328","url":null,"abstract":"Band-limited functions are fundamental objects that are widely used in systems theory and signal processing. In this letter we refine a recent nonparametric, nonasymptotic method for constructing simultaneous confidence regions for band-limited functions from noisy input-output measurements, by working in a Paley-Wiener reproducing kernel Hilbert space. Kernel norm bounds are tightened using a uniformly-randomized Hoeffding’s inequality for small samples and an empirical Bernstein bound for larger ones. We derive an approximate threshold, based on the sample size and how informative the inputs are, that governs which bound to deploy. Finally, we apply majority voting to aggregate confidence sets from random subsamples, boosting both stability and region size. We prove that even per-input aggregated intervals retain their simultaneous coverage guarantee. These refinements are also validated through numerical experiments.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1381-1386"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=&arnumber=11052262","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144606240","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On Relaxing the N-Reachability Implicit Requirement in NMPC Design","authors":"Mazen Alamir","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3582951","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3582951","url":null,"abstract":"This letter proposes a proof of stability for Model Predictive Control formulations involving a prediction horizon that might be too short to meet the reachability condition generally invoked as a sufficient condition for closed-loop stability. This condition is replaced by a contraction condition on the stage cost. But unlike the contraction based existing formulations where the prediction horizon becomes a decision variable, the formulation proposed in this letter remains standard in that it uses constant and short prediction horizon. An illustrative example is provided to assess the relevance of the proposed formulation.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1628-1633"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144634678","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":"On Exact Solutions to the Linear Bellman Equation","authors":"David Ohlin;Richard Pates;Murat Arcak","doi":"10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3582908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/LCSYS.2025.3582908","url":null,"abstract":"This letter presents sufficient conditions for optimal control of systems with dynamics given by a linear operator, in order to obtain an explicit solution to the Bellman equation that can be calculated in a distributed fashion. Further, the class of Linearly Solvable MDP is reformulated as a continuous-state optimal control problem. It is shown that this class naturally satisfies the conditions for explicit solution of the Bellman equation, motivating the extension of previous results to semilinear dynamics to account for input nonlinearities. The applicability of the given conditions is illustrated in scenarios with linear and quadratic cost, corresponding to the Stochastic Shortest Path and Linear-Quadratic Regulator problems.","PeriodicalId":37235,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Control Systems Letters","volume":"9 ","pages":"1568-1573"},"PeriodicalIF":2.4,"publicationDate":"2025-06-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144606201","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}