Manav Shah

Dhirubhai Ambani International School

Mathematics HL Extended Essay Abstract

This essay deals with the optimal way to desirably control any arbitrary
physical system that has an input and an output. The problem arises when the
output of that same system must be set at a desirable level which can only be done
by changing the causal input. The extent to which this change in input makes a
change in the output may not be know or, for that matter, even linear, all since it is
unmodelled. Thus an active, iterative feedback controlled loop is need to correct the
input in order to produce a desired output. This is where Control theory comes in. It
deals with controlling the output of said systems to reach the desired goal output in
the least time with the least deviation of the output of the system to the desired
output. An apt example for this would be a car heater. If the temperature inside the
car cabin is 20ºC but the driver sets it at 25ºC, the car’s computer system must
supply electricity (input) to the heating coils in such a way that the cabin heats up to
25ºC without overheating or under-heating, in the quickest time possible. An optimal
control algorithm would do so while achieving said goals.

Traditional simple control methods like the Proportional Integral Derivative

Control which require manual setting of up to three arbitrary constants for optimum
functionality, may not be adequate for many situations owing to non linearity of the
behaviour of the output or noise in the feedback data. Therefore, proposed is a
modified Proportional Integral Derivative approach with non linear activation
function to add the desired degree of nonlinearity. This too requires setting of upto
three constants and biases in some cases, which can be arrived at using
multivariable gradient descent in order to minimise the decided cost function of the
system (in this case, simply the integral of the distance between the actual output
and the desired output). Essentially, the new Control method learns the system by
performing gradient descent and finds the optimal way to control the given system
with dynamic modifications made to these constant as the system undergoes wear
and tear or is subject to different conditions. This method is inspired by a basic
model of a perceptron in Computer Science, used to learn simple tasks such as this
one, efficiently. There could be scope for improvement by changing the activation
functions through observation and trial and error.