inControl ep12 - John Doyle, Part I: A Pioneer's Guide to Robust Control - The Past, Present, and Future
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May 15, 2023 John Doyle, a living legend in the field of robust control, shares his journey in control theory. From his groundbreaking work on μm synthesis and the H∞infinity problem to his insights on System Level Synthesis and modern control architectures, John discusses the past, present, and future of robust control. Along the way, he shares fascinating stories including record-breaking athletics feats and a thrilling Panamanian adventure. Don't miss his thoughts on fixing the theory-practice gap and the challenge of architecture design in our age.
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Master's Thesis and Uncertainty Modeling
- Doyle's master's thesis in information theory, supervised by Sanjoy Mitter, corrected a flawed PhD thesis.
- A Honeywell engineer inspired Doyle to model uncertainty "where it is", not for convenience.
Collaboration and Math PhD
- Doyle collaborated mainly with non-US academics due to a lack of support for his ideas in the US.
- He pursued a math PhD due to the field's openness to new mathematical tools.
LQG Margins and Fragile Systems
- Doyle's "Guaranteed Margins for LQG Regulators" paper showed LQG's lack of guaranteed margins with an analytic example.
- He also highlighted systems with near pole-zero cancellations, for which no controller works well.