The FAMIMO LOMOLOCO Workshop: 25th March 1998

[Hugues Bersini]

Following the IFAC workshop on  Intelligent Components
for vehicles (ICV'98): One day Workshop on LOMOLOCO (Local Modelling
Local
Control) approaches in Non-Linear Control in the context of the FAMIMO
ESPRIT Project.

In recent years, we have seen an increasing interest for
the divide-and-conquer approaches in control. The basic idea is simple,
and widely used in many scientific communities dealing with
neural networks, fuzzy systems, non-linear control, statistical
approaches ,etc..

A variety of ways are proposed to approximate and control unknown
or partially known non-linear systems by some form of combination
(smooth or crisp)  of simple and local models (low-order polynomials,
frequently constant or linear) which only act in some local region of
the
state space.

In process control, we get very close to the classical strategy known as

"gain scheduling" which the influence of fuzzy control has revived in
a growing number of applications. Neural Network practitioners have
proposed (in place of global approximators) "lazy" or "local" types of
model and controller,in which learning takes place only on the basis of
the data present in the restricted region occupied by the local agent.

One basic and obvious advantage of this approach is that it allows
us the possibility of making use of theoretical results and analytical
tools from the field of statistical linear analysis, linear control,
linear regression,etc.in a local, iterative and distributed way.  The
main issues to be addressed during the workshop will be:


- the discovery of the local models i.e. the modelling part
- how to derive local control laws from the local models i.e. how
to adapt the different control strategies (regulation, tracking, predic-

tive and optimal control) to this local and distributed approach
- how to combine the local models and local controllers: smooth or
crisp,
and switching strategies in general
- how to extend linear stability analysis to the global combination of
the local controllers
- lazy modelling and lazy control

FAMIMO (Fuzzy Algorithms for Multi-Input Multi-Output processes) is
the second ESPRIT European initiative (following FALCON) aiming at
designing fuzzy systems for the reliable control of high-dimensional
complex processes.  LOMOLOCO approaches are among the strategies most
analysed and tested by FAMIMO partners, who will present their work on
this
subject at the workshop. These partners are:

The Lund Institute of Technology: Prof. Astrom and Prof. Arzen
The Delft University of Technology: Prof. Verbruggen and Prof. Babuska
The IRIDIA laboratory from Universite Libre de Bruxelles: Prof. Bersini
The SIEMENS Automotive SA: Serge Boverie
The AICIA Institute of Seville: Prof. Ollero.

Besides we also expect the presence (to be confirmed) of Prof.
Tanaka, Prof. Johanssen and Prof. Palm and some others to present their
latest work around the LOMOLOCO approaches in control.

We would like to encourage European researchers to attend this
workshop which will take place the day after the Seville workshop and
present work that they believe to be related to the main theme of the
workshop. We therefore invite people to submit a full copy of their work

(6 pages maximum) before the 8th December at the address of Hugues
Bersini, indicated below.  All organisational aspects of the workshop
are
the same as the Seville workshop (http://www.esi.us.es/ISA/icv98/).

For any information and submission:
Hugues Bersini
IRIDIA CP 194/6 ULB
50, av. Franklin Roosevelt
1050 Bruxelles
tel: +32 2 650 27 33
fax: +32 2 650 27 15
email: bersini at ulb.ac.be

See also:
http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/FAMIMO/Workshop.html