Finite-Time Stability and Control

include estimation problems over wireless sensor networks with the development of sensor selection algorithms; analysis and control of finite-time stability of continuous-time, discrete-time and hybrid systems; robust stability analysis of uncertain systems using polyhedral Lyapunov functions. Roberto Ambrosino is author of more than 30 papers appeared on books, international journals and conferences. He served as reviewer for IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Automatica, International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing and many international conferences. Gianmaria De Tommasi was born in Milano, Italy, in 1975. He received the laurea degree (summa cum laude) in electronic engineering from the University of Naples Federico II in 2001. Since 2002 he has been with the Department of Computer and Systems Engineering of the University of Naples Federico II, where he received the PhD in Computer and Automatic Engineering in 2005 and where he is currently Assistant Professor. He has been a visiting researcher at the JET tokamak (UK), where he has participated in the implementation of the extreme Shape Controller (XSC) project, and to Plasma Control Upgrade (PCU). He has also participated in the modelling activities for the Central Safety System and Central Interlock System at the ITER Organization (France). Currently, he is a Project Leader of the Current Limit Avoidance Implementation Project for the JET tokamak. His current research interests include control of nuclear fusion devices, fault detection for discrete-event systems, identification of discrete event systems modelled with Petri nets, and stability of hybrid systems. He has published more than 90 journal and conference papers.

Carlo Cosentino was born in Napoli, Italy, in 1978. He received the Masters degree (Laurea) cum laude in Computer Engineering in 2001 from University of Naple Federico II and the PhD in Computer and Automation Engineering in 2005, from the same university. From June 2005 until March 2006 he has been a post-doctoral researcher at the University Magna Graecia of Catanzaro. Since March 2006 he has been Assistant Professor of systems and control engineering, in the scientific area ING-INF/04 - Automatica. He took part in the European project "Affordable Digital fly-by-wire Flight Control System - phase II (ADFCS-II) 2001-2004, the PRIN project "Tecniche robuste e di ottimizzazione per il controllo di sistemi incerti" ("Robust and optimization techniques for the control of uncertain systems") 2002-2004 and PON project "Sviluppo di un sistema di controllo di volo per velivoli di aviazione generale" GAFACS ("General Aviation Flight Affordable Control System") 2004-2006. He has been visiting scholar at the Dorothy M. Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute, Ohio State University, Columbus (USA) from February to May 2004, visiting researcher at the Microsoft Research - University of Trento Centre for Computational and Systems Biology, Trento (Italy) in March-April 2006 and at the Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA (USA) in February-March 2008. His main research interests are systems and control theory, modeling of biological systems, algorithms for inferring biological interaction networks. In the field of systems and control theory, he is especially interested in the research on the finite-time stability and stabilizability of linear systems and on stability of nonlinear quadratic systems. He is co-author of more than 60 scientific publications of international books, encyclopedias, peer-reviewed journal papers and conference proceedings and of an Italian patent.