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SUMMARY:Real-time control of critical infrastructure in times of scarcity
DTSTART:20251201T140000
DTEND:20251201T150000
DTSTAMP:20260501T150443Z
UID:002f21a93689dad2845acfa4280b7e929c1ef7ddc4cb60f28dc381c3
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Sophie Hall\, PhD student at ETH Zurich \nAbstract:\n\nFor de
 cades\, humanity operated under an illusion of abundance\, exploiting oil\
 , water\, land and other planetary resources as if they were infinite. Thi
 s paradigm is shifting as we confront resource scarcity. Grid congestion b
 locks renewable integration\; traffic congestion is at its peak\; compute 
 centers strain power systems.\n\nTrade-offs will be hardcoded into control
 lers\, requiring their careful design. Automation tackles resource distrib
 ution across critical infrastructure\, yet scarcity forces trade-offs betw
 een system efficiency (money\, sustainability\, degradation etc.) and user
  autonomy. This talk compares two contrasting approaches:\n\n(1) Real-time
  control for self-interested users: Game-theoretic MPC models competitive 
 agents sharing resources with predictions\, dynamics\, and constraints. I 
 present energy management results from a Swiss DSO collaboration.\n\n(2) R
 eal-time control for maximal system efficiency: Global optimal control wit
 h robustness guarantees for compute load allocation. I present results fro
 m a 3-year collaboration with Google's Carbon-Aware Computing team achievi
 ng 15% carbon reduction through day-ahead planning and real-time control.\
 n\nLooking forward\, dynamic allocation algorithms allow for even richer o
 bjectives - for instance\, caring for the disadvantaged - towards a welfar
 ist control design.\n\nBiography: \n\nSophie Hall is a PhD student at the
  Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zürich since May 2021\, working in P
 rof. Dörfler's group. She completed her undergraduate studies in Mechanic
 al Engineering focusing on medical control and signal processing at the Un
 iversity of Surrey\, UK\, and Nanyang Technological University\, Singapore
 . In 2021\, she obtained MSc in Biomedical Engineering from ETH Zürich sp
 ecializing in modeling and control. During her master's studies\, she cond
 ucted research on Gaussian processes for control in Prof. Zeilinger's grou
 p and worked on real-time MPC schemes in Prof. Dörfler's group. Her PhD r
 esearch focuses on game-theoretic MPC\, its theoretical closed-loop proper
 ties\, as well as energy and groundwater applications.\n 
LOCATION:ME C2 405 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==ME%20C2%20405
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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