Control Reconfiguration of Dynamical Systems for Improved Performance via Reverse- and Forward-Engineering

This article presents a control reconfiguration approach to improve the performance of two classes of dynamical systems. Motivated by recent research on re-engineering cyber-physical systems, we propose a three-step control retrofit procedure. First, we reverse-engineer a dynamical system to dig out an optimization problem it actually solves. Second, we forward-engineer the system by applying a corresponding faster algorithm to solve this optimization problem. Finally, by comparing the original and accelerated dynamics, we obtain the implementation of the redesigned part (the extra dynamics). As a result, the convergence rate/speed or transient behavior of the given system can be improved, while the system control structure is maintained. Internet congestion control and distributed proportional–integral control, as applications in the two different classes of target systems, show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.