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Research profile Prof. dr. ir. M. (Ming) Cao

Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen

Description of research:

The research line that I have developed is focused on the analysis and control of complex systems and networks. My approach is highly multidisciplinary, leading me to be active in the communities of systems and control theory of IEEE and SIAM and more recently in the community of network sciences interacting with biologists, sociologists and economists. I specialize in integrating mathematical theoretical study with engineering experimental validation. As a theorist, I utilize graph theoretical ideas along with dynamical systems tools to synthesize distributed self-organization protocols that are applicable to large-scale networks. As an experimentalist, I promote actively the use of autonomous robotic teams for new scientific and engineering applications. The central theme of my research is studying the behavior of network control algorithms in a dynamically changing environment. Particularly exciting is my interaction with theoretical sociologists and biologists, which has led to the design of novel algorithms for large-scale complex networks, using inspiration from newly identified mechanisms from theoretical social and biological models. I am working on (1) Obtaining stability results as network-level properties for coupled agents conditioned on the agents’ local dynamics and their couplings; (2) Constructing distributed algorithms that are scalable, robust and efficient; (3) Achieving decision-making rules in evolutionary and adaptive collectives.

Keywords: complex systems and networks, distributed decision-making and coordination, control for evolutionary processes, autonomous robots, bio-medical oscillators

Websites:
Discrete Technology and Product Automation: http://www.rug.nl/research/discrete-technology-production-automation/
Personal website: http://www.rug.nl/staff/m.cao/
Employee (corporate homepage): http://www.rug.nl/staff/m.cao/

Last modified:14 February 2018 10.42 a.m.