Abstract
Regulation theory is grounded in the internal model principle, which states that exact regulation requires an exact internal model of the external signals to be regulated. How to reconcile this calibration principle with systems made of uncertain and variable components ? How do animals achieve regulation in changing and complex environments? The talk will propose that reliable regulation is possible in uncertain machines that regulate events rather than trajectories. I will highlight the role of excitability and synaptic coupling in a theory of event regulation.
Biographical Information
Rodolphe Sepulchre is Professor of Engineering at the KU Leuven (Belgium) and at the University of Cambridge (UK). He is a fellow of IFAC (2020), IEEE (2009), and SIAM (2015). He received the IEEE CSS Antonio Ruberti Young Researcher Prize in 2008 and the IEEE CSS George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award in 2020. He was elected at the Royal Academy of Belgium in 2013. He has been Editor-in-Chief of Systems and Control Letters (2009-2019) and the IEEE Control Systems Magazine (2020-2024). He is a recipient of two ERC advanced grants (Switchlets (2015-2021) and SpikyControl (2023-2028)).