Control of self-organizing nonlinear systems

Nonlinear dynamical systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium often exhibit self-organization, i.e., the spontaneous emergence of temporal, spatial, or spatio-­temporal dissipative structures from the inherent nonlinear cooperative dynamics. Dissipative structures in self-organizing nonlinear systems are indeed widespread in physics, chemistry, and biology. In recent years, much progress has been achieved in not only describing these intriguing dynamical structures, but also in developing novel approaches to control such systems using a spectrum of methods from the control of nonlinear dynamical systems, the classical mathematical control and optimization theory, and coherent quantum control. For example, an increasingly popular method is feedback control (closed-loop control), where unstable states are stabilized adaptively by using the internal dynamics of the systems. Besides method development, applications of concepts of control have been substantially broadened towards new areas such as soft and active condensed matter, cardiac tissue, quantum systems, neural systems, and complex networks.

Guest Editors:Sabine Klapp, Anna Zakharova, Isabelle Schneider