This paper summarizes several recent developments in the area of estimation and robust control of quantum systems and outlines several directions for future research. Quantum state tomography via linear regression estimation and adaptive quantum state estimation are introduced and a Hamiltonian identification algorithm is outlined. Two quantum robust control approaches including sliding mode control and sampling-based learning control are illustrated.
This work studies the design of safe control policies for large-scale non-linear systems operating in uncertain environments. In such a case, the robust control framework is a principled approach to safety that aims to maximize the worst-case performance of a system. However, the resulting optimization problem is generally intractable for non-linear systems with continuous states. To overcome this issue, we introduce two tractable methods that are based either on sampling or on a conservative approximation of the robust objective. The proposed approaches are applied to the problem of autonomous driving.
We develop a novel data-driven robust model predictive control (DDRMPC) approach for automatic control of irrigation systems. The fundamental idea is to integrate both mechanistic models, which describe dynamics in soil moisture variations, and data-driven models, which characterize uncertainty in forecast errors of evapotranspiration and precipitation, into a holistic systems control framework. To better capture the support of uncertainty distribution, we take a new learning-based approach by constructing uncertainty sets from historical data. For evapotranspiration forecast error, the support vector clustering-based uncertainty set is adopted, which can be conveniently built from historical data. As for precipitation forecast errors, we analyze the dependence of their distribution on forecast values, and further design a tailored uncertainty set based on the properties of this type of uncertainty. In this way, the overall uncertainty distribution can be elaborately described, which finally contributes to rational and efficient control decisions. To assure the quality of data-driven uncertainty sets, a training-calibration scheme is used to provide theoretical performance guarantees. A generalized affine decision rule is adopted to obtain tractable approximations of optimal control problems, thereby ensuring the practicability of DDRMPC. Case studies using real data show that, DDRMPC can reliably maintain soil moisture above the safety level and avoid crop devastation. The proposed DDRMPC approach leads to a 40% reduction of total water consumption compared to the fine-tuned open-loop control strategy. In comparison with the carefully tuned rule-based control and certainty equivalent model predictive control, the proposed DDRMPC approach can significantly reduce the total water consumption and improve the control performance.
This paper proposes a fully distributed robust state-estimation (D-RBSE) method that is applicable to multi-area power systems with nonlinear measurements. We extend the recently introduced bilinear formulation of state estimation problems to a robust model. A distributed bilinear state-estimation procedure is developed. In both linear stages, the state estimation problem in each area is solved locally, with minimal data exchange with its neighbors. The intermediate nonlinear transformation can be performed by all areas in parallel without any need of inter-regional communication. This algorithm does not require a central coordinator and can compress bad measurements by introducing a robust state estimation model. Numerical tests on IEEE 14-bus and 118-bus benchmark systems demonstrate the validity of the method.
Quantum systems can be controlled by other quantum systems in a reversible way, without any information leaking to the outside of the system-controller compound. Such coherent quantum control is deterministic, is less noisy than measurement-based feedback control, and has potential applications in a variety of quantum technologies, including quantum computation, quantum communication and quantum metrology. Here we introduce a coherent feedback protocol, consisting of a sequence of identical interactions with controlling quantum systems, that steers a quantum system from an arbitrary initial state towards a target state. We determine the broad class of such coherent feedback channels that achieve convergence to the target state, and then stabilise as well as protect it against noise. Our results imply that also weak system-controller interactions can counter noise if they occur with suitably high frequency. We provide an example of a control scheme that does not require knowledge of the target state encoded in the controllers, which could be the result of a quantum computation. It thus provides a mechanism for autonomous, purely quantum closed-loop control.
In quantum engineering, faults may occur in a quantum control system, which will cause the quantum control system unstable or deteriorate other relevant performance of the system. This note presents an estimator-based fault-tolerant control design approach for a class of linear quantum stochastic systems subject to fault signals. In this approach, the fault signals and some commutative components of the quantum system observables are estimated, and a fault-tolerant controller is designed to compensate the effect of the fault signals. Numerical procedures are developed for controller design and an example is presented to demonstrate the proposed design approach.