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Anthony Bloch

Anthony Bloch contributes to research discovery and scholarly infrastructure.

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Published work

9 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

The Score Kalman Filter

A central obstacle in nonlinear Bayesian filtering is representing the belief distribution. Moment-based filters address this by propagating polynomial moments and reconstructing a density from them. Recent work completes the predict-update loop via the maximum-entropy (MaxEnt) principle, but each step requires the partition function and its gradient, both $n$-dimensional integrals whose cost scales exponentially, restricting the demonstrated MaxEnt moment filtering to $n \le 4$. We avoid the partition function entirely by combining score matching with Stein's identity. In our setting, score matching reduces the density fit to a single linear solve whose coefficients are assembled directly from the propagated moments. The same parameters then drive Stein's identity to close the moment hierarchy during prediction and to recover posterior moments after each Bayesian update, keeping the full predict-update loop free of partition function evaluation. The resulting Score Kalman Filter (SKF) reduces to the classical information-form Kalman filter as a special case and performs every step through linear algebra. On nonlinear coupled-oscillator networks, the SKF runs through $n=20$ and reports lower RMSE than the EKF, UKF, EnKF, and particle-filter baselines on the tested synthetic benchmarks.

preprint2023arXiv

Virtual Affine Nonholonomic Constraints

Virtual constraints are relations imposed in a control system that become invariant via feedback, instead of real physical constraints acting on the system. Nonholonomic systems are mechanical systems with non-integrable constraints on the velocities. In this work, we introduce the notion of virtual affine nonholonomic constraints in a geometric framework. More precisely, it is a controlled invariant affine distribution associated with an affine connection mechanical control system. We show the existence and uniqueness of a control law defining a virtual affine nonholonomic constraint.

preprint2022arXiv

Input Influence Matrix Design for MIMO Discrete-Time Ultra-Local Model

Ultra-Local Models (ULM) have been applied to perform model-free control of nonlinear systems with unknown or partially known dynamics. Unfortunately, extending these methods to MIMO systems requires designing a dense input influence matrix which is challenging. This paper presents guidelines for designing an input influence matrix for discrete-time, control-affine MIMO systems using an ULM-based controller. This paper analyzes the case that uses ULM and a model-free control scheme: the Hölder-continuous Finite-Time Stable (FTS) control. By comparing the ULM with the actual system dynamics, the paper describes how to extract the input-dependent part from the lumped ULM dynamics and finds that the tracking and state estimation error are coupled. The stability of the ULM-FTS error dynamics is affected by the eigenvalues of the difference (defined by matrix multiplication) between the actual and designed input influence matrix. Finally, the paper shows that a wide range of input influence matrix designs can keep the ULM-FTS error dynamics (at least locally) asymptotically stable. A numerical simulation is included to verify the result. The analysis can also be extended to other ULM-based controllers.

preprint2022arXiv

Invariant Forms in Hybrid and Impact Systems and a Taming of Zeno

Hybrid (and impact) systems are dynamical systems experiencing both continuous and discrete transitions. In this work, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions for when a given differential form is invariant, with special attention paid to the case of the existence of invariant volumes. Particular attention is given to impact systems where the continuous dynamics are Lagrangian and subject to nonholonomic constraints. A celebrated result for volume-preserving dynamical systems is Poincaré recurrence. In order to be recurrent, trajectories need to exist for long periods of time, which can be controlled in continuous-time systems through e.g. compactness. For hybrid systems, an additional mechanism can occur which breaks long-time existence: Zeno (infinitely many discrete transitions in a finite amount of time). We demonstrate that the existence of a smooth invariant volume severely inhibits Zeno behavior; hybrid systems with the "boundary identity property" along with an invariant volume-form have almost no Zeno trajectories (although Zeno trajectories can still exist). This leads to the result that many billiards (e.g. the classical point, the rolling disk, and the rolling ball) are recurrent independent on the shape of the compact table-top.

preprint2022arXiv

Lie Algebraic Cost Function Design for Control on Lie Groups

This paper presents a control framework on Lie groups by designing the control objective in its Lie algebra. Control on Lie groups is challenging due to its nonlinear nature and difficulties in system parameterization. Existing methods to design the control objective on a Lie group and then derive the gradient for controller design are non-trivial and can result in slow convergence in tracking control. We show that with a proper left-invariant metric, setting the gradient of the cost function as the tracking error in the Lie algebra leads to a quadratic Lyapunov function that enables globally exponential convergence. In the PD control case, we show that our controller can maintain an exponential convergence rate even when the initial error is approaching $π$ in SO(3). We also show the merit of this proposed framework in trajectory optimization. The proposed cost function enables the iterative Linear Quadratic Regulator (iLQR) to converge much faster than the Differential Dynamic Programming (DDP) with a well-adopted cost function when the initial trajectory is poorly initialized on SO(3).

preprint2022arXiv

Virtual Nonholonomic Constraints: A Geometric Approach

Virtual constraints are invariant relations imposed on a control system via feedback as opposed to real physical constraints acting on the system. Nonholonomic systems are mechanical systems with non-integrable constraints on the velocities. In this work, we introduce the notion of virtual nonholonomic constraints in a geometric framework. More precisely, it is a controlled invariant distribution associated with an affine connection mechanical control system. We demonstrate the existence and uniqueness of a control law defining a virtual nonholonomic constraint and we characterize the trajectories of the closed-loop system as solutions of a mechanical system associated with an induced constrained connection. Moreover, we characterize the dynamics for nonholonomic systems in terms of virtual nonholonomic constraints, i.e., we characterize when can we obtain nonholonomic dynamics from virtual nonholonomic constraints.

preprint2020arXiv

Data-Driven Model Reduction for Multilinear Control Systems via Tensor Trains

In this paper, we explore the role of tensor algebra in balanced truncation (BT) based model reduction/identification for high-dimensional multilinear/linear time invariant systems. In particular, we employ tensor train decomposition (TTD), which provides a good compromise between numerical stability and level of compression, and has an associated algebra that facilitates computations. Using TTD, we propose a new BT approach which we refer to as higher-order balanced truncation, and consider different data-driven variations including higher-order empirical gramians, higher-order balanced proper orthogonal decomposition and a higher-order eigensystem realization algorithm. We perform computational and memory complexity analysis for these different flavors of TTD based BT methods, and compare with the corresponding standard BT methods in order to develop insights into where the proposed framework may be beneficial. We provide numerical results on simulated and experimental datasets showing the efficacy of the proposed framework.

preprint2020arXiv

Multilinear Control Systems Theory

In this paper, we provide a system theoretic treatment of a new class of multilinear time-invariant (MLTI) systems in which the states, inputs and outputs are tensors, and the system evolution is governed by multilinear operators. The MLTI system representation is based on the Einstein product and even-order paired tensors. There is a particular tensor unfolding which gives rise to an isomorphism from this tensor space to the general linear group, i.e. the group of invertible matrices. By leveraging this unfolding operation, one can extend classical linear time-invariant (LTI) system notions including stability, reachability and observability to MLTI systems. While the unfolding based formulation is a powerful theoretical construct, the computational advantages of MLTI systems can only be fully realized while working with the tensor form, where hidden patterns/structures can be exploited for efficient representations and computations. Along these lines, we establish new results which enable one to express tensor unfolding based stability, reachability and observability criteria in terms of more standard notions of tensor ranks/decompositions. In addition, we develop a generalized CANDECOMP/PARAFAC decomposition and tensor train decomposition based model reduction framework, which can significantly reduce the number of MLTI system parameters. We demonstrate our framework with numerical examples.

preprint2017arXiv

An Algorithm for Cellular Reprogramming

The day we understand the time evolution of subcellular elements at a level of detail comparable to physical systems governed by Newton's laws of motion seems far away. Even so, quantitative approaches to cellular dynamics add to our understanding of cell biology, providing data-guided frameworks that allow us to develop better predictions about and methods for control over specific biological processes and system-wide cell behavior. In this paper we describe an approach to optimizing the use of transcription factors in the context of cellular reprogramming. We construct an approximate model for the natural evolution of a synchronized population of fibroblasts, based on data obtained by sampling the expression of some 22,083 genes at several times along the cell cycle. (These data are based on a colony of cells that have been cell cycle synchronized) In order to arrive at a model of moderate complexity, we cluster gene expression based on the division of the genome into topologically associating domains (TADs) and then model the dynamics of the expression levels of the TADs. Based on this dynamical model and known bioinformatics, we develop a methodology for identifying the transcription factors that are the most likely to be effective toward a specific cellular reprogramming task. The approach used is based on a device commonly used in optimal control. From this data-guided methodology, we identify a number of validated transcription factors used in reprogramming and/or natural differentiation. Our findings highlight the immense potential of dynamical models models, mathematics, and data guided methodologies for improving methods for control over biological processes.