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Maria Soledad Aronna

Maria Soledad Aronna is Argentinian-Italian. She was recruited as a postdoc by the University of Padova where she worked on Control Theory in Classical Mechanics. She was seconded to Imperial College of London. She now holds a Postdoc of Excellence position at IMPA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

 aronna_photo_sadco.jpgMaria Soledad Aronna - University of Padova

 

  • Main host organisation: Università degli Studi di Padova, Italy
  • Supervisors: Franco Rampazzo
  • Secondment organisation: Imperial College London, UK
  • Nationality: Argentinian-Italian
  • Fellowship duration: February 2012 - July 2013
  • Background: Maria Soledad obtained a master's degree year in Mathematics in 2007 at Universidad Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. She holds a PhD from Ecole Polytechnique, France.

 

 

 

SADCO project subject: Control Theory in Classical Mechanics

In models where some coordinates are used as controls, the presence of quadratic terms in the derivatives of the controls is due to a curvature term of the foliation representing the moving constraint. In turn this quadratic term is responsible for interesting stabilization phenomena, exemplified by the inverted pendulum when the pivot is subject to rapid oscillations. Within this context, we wish first to investigate whether some kind of differential geometric classification of the involved foliations could help to simplify the theory. Secondly, in order to actually produce feedback stabilizing controls it should be helpful to analyze special kind of Hamilton-Jacobi inequalities.


Finally, in the study of optimization problems, when the curvature term vanishes one ends up with a slow growth problem, which is particularly interesting because of the presence of non vanishing Lie brackets. In perspective, the addition of non holonomic constraints to the mechanical system will be a source of new geometric and analytic issues.

 

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