Challenges and Opportunities in Dynamic Distributed Systems

Human-designed systems have never before demonstrated the level of interconnection and coupling evident in modern distributed systems, such as communication networks, the power grid, air and road traffic, and financial markets. Modern civilization is critically dependent on the smooth, safe, and reliable operation of these systems, but their complexity and size poses obvious challenges to scientific study. To use a common engineering idiom, these systems are far too big to "fit inside any one person's head".
"Traditionally" (i.e. the last 20 years) these systems have been studied with domain-specific ad-hoc techniques; however, the maturity of modern computing, communication, control, and optimization research has made it increasingly plausible that these systems can be studied with extremely similar (though not strictly identical) tools.
In this seminar I will introduce a small portion of my research in this area, as well as why I think it has the potential to "organize" the way engineers think about such systems in the same way that "systems theory" allowed engineers of the WWII era to organize research across diverse device areas with a common mathematical framework.
BIO: Dr. Spanos is a Post-Doctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology, and works primarily at the intersection of control, dynamics, communication, and computing. He obtained a Ph.D. in Control and Dynamical Systems from Caltech, and prior to that obtained degrees in Engineering and Applied athematics from Rice University. In addition to his academic research, Dr. Spanos consults on scientific problems for several technology startup companies in Southern California.

Location: Hughes Aircraft Electrical Engineering Center (EEB) - 248

Audiences: Everyone Is Invited

Contact: Shane Goodoff