Section: Partnerships and Cooperations

National Initiatives

DOOM (Systems-theory for the Disorders Of Online Media). 80 PRIME from CNRS MITI (2019–2022). PI: P. Frasca

Online social media have a key role in contemporary society and the debates that take place on them are known to shape political and societal trends. For this reason, pathological phenomena like the formation of “filter bubbles” and the viral propagation of “fake news” are observed with concern. The scientific assumption of this proposal is that these information disorders are direct consequences of the inherent nature of these communication media, and more specifically of the collective dynamics of attention thereby. In order to capture these dynamics, this proposal advocates the mathematical modelling of the interplay between the medium (algorithmic component) and the users (human component). The resulting dynamics shall be explored by a system-theoretic approach, using notions such as feedback and stability. This quantitative and rigorous approach will not only unlock fundamental insights but also deliver suggestions on suitable policies to manage the media.

HANDY (Hybrid and Networked Dynamical Systems). ANR PRC (2019-2022). Co-PI: P. Frasca

Networked dynamical systems are ubiquitous in current and emerging technologies. From energy grids, fleets of connected autonomous vehicles to online social networks, the same scenario arises in each case: dynamical units interact locally to achieve a global behavior. When considering a networked system as a whole, very often continuous-time dynamics are affected by instantaneous changes, called jumps, leading to so-called hybrid dynamical systems. Hybrid phenomena thus play an essential role in these control applications, and call upon the development of novel adapted tools for stability and performance analysis and control design. In this context, the aim of HANDY project is to provide methodological control-oriented tools for realistic networked models, which account for hybrid phenomena. The project brings together researchers from LAAS in Toulouse, CRAN in Nancy, GIPSA in Grenoble and LSS in Gif-sur-Yvette, with expertise in various domains of automatic control, ranging from geometric control and optimization, switched systems, hybrid dynamics, nonlinear control, and multi-agent systems. See also: http://projects.laas.fr/handy

AgileWorld-MRSEI. PI: A. Kibangou AgileWorld is an ANR-MRSEI project (2018-2020), which aims at building an European network for an innovative training on road transportation systems in a connected world. The funding will help to prepare and then submit a proposal for the MSCA-ITN 2019 call. For this purpose a workshop was organized in November 2019 with the partners of the project in Grenoble.