Building 27, room 2001
Speaker: Dr. Lanlan Su, University of Manchester, UK
Title: From Passivity Theorem to Network Consensus and Distributed Design
Abstract: Passivity theory and the passivity feedback theorem are classical tools for analysing the stability of feedback systems. In this talk, I discuss how these feedback-based ideas can be extended beyond stability analysis to study consensus in networked systems. Using an input–output perspective, network consensus problems are reformulated as feedback interconnections between agent dynamics and graph-induced coupling structures.
This viewpoint naturally leads to a general framework based on integral quadratic constraints (IQCs), which unifies passivity-based consensus analysis with broader dissipativity and robustness concepts. I will outline how this framework offers guidance for distributed network design, including local coupling rules and modular interconnections.
Bio: Dr. Lanlan Su is a Lecturer in Control Systems at University of Manchester, UK. She received her B.E. degree in Electrical Engineering from Zhejiang University, China, in 2014, and her Ph.D. in Control Engineering from the University of Hong Kong in 2018. She subsequently worked as a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Notre Dame, USA.
From 2019 to 2025, Dr. Su held Lectureship positions at the University of Leicester and the University of Sheffield, UK. She currently serves as an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Control.
Dr. Su is a recipient of the Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship awarded by the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong. Her research interests include robust control, networked control systems, and distributed systems.