Today I am giving a seminar talk at the University of Washington on Toward a Geometric Theory of Passivity, based on joint work with Fengyu Yue. The talk looks at how passivity can provide a compositional framework for analyzing nonlinear diffusive networks, where local dynamics and network topology need to work together to give closed-loop convergence guarantees.
The main idea is to extend classical passivity from equilibrium points to target manifolds. This leads to transverse passivity and compatibility conditions that can describe synchronization, formation control, path following, and directed agreement as geometric interconnection problems. The slides are available here: PDF.
I am especially happy to be back at UW, where I completed my PhD, and to present this work in front of my advisor and mentor Prof. Mehran Mesbahi.