The X-15 Research Program in the United States Air Force

In this episode, our guest is Anuradha Annaswamy. Anu is the Director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory and Senior Research Scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the Deparment of Mechanical Engineering.  We delve into adaptive control and its exciting history, ranging from the Brave Era to the audacious X15 tests and to modern intersections with Reinforcement Learning.

Outline
02:15 - Anu's background
05:20 - What is adaptation?
08:30 - The Brave Era
15:17 - The X15 accident 
23:16 - Exploration vs exploitation
28:35 - Beyond linearity and time invariance
45:05 - Adaptive control vs Reinforcement Learning
52:12 - The future of adaptive control
54:34 - Outro

Episode links
Anu's lab:  http://aaclab.mit.edu/
NCCR Symposium: https://tinyurl.com/bdz84p4c
Book - Stable adaptive systems: https://tinyurl.com/mw4saame
X-15 Flight 3-65-97: https://tinyurl.com/2kbe7nsy
Paper - Adaptive Control and the NASA X-15-3 Flight Revisited: https://tinyurl.com/2p83k7ez
Paper - A historical perspective of adaptive control and learning: https://tinyurl.com/yck89rcd
Paper -Adaptive Control and Intersections with Reinforcement Learning: https://tinyurl.com/yc27rsyd
KYP Lemma: https://tinyurl.com/mkf35jjt
Persistence of excitation: https://tinyurl.com/bpfwp9n9
Dual control: https://tinyurl.com/ywduzm5x
Paper - Robust adaptive control in the presence of bounded disturbances:  https://tinyurl.com/4pztx23z
Paper -  Reinforcement learning is direct adaptive optimal control https://tinyurl.com/appnjzyn
MRAC: https://tinyurl.com/bdzzphju
Self Tuning Control: https://tinyurl.com/3mjs3skm

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Acknowledgments and sponsors
This episode was supported by the National Centre of Competence in Research on «Dependable, ubiquitous automation» and the IFAC Activity fund. The podcast benefits from the help of an incredibly talented and passionate team. Special thanks to L. Seward, E. Cahard, F. Banis, F. Dörfler, J. Lygeros, ETH studio and mirrorlake . Music was composed by A New Element.