Leila Bridgeman

Research Interests

Robust and optimal control, linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), model predictive control (MPC), delayed systems, input-output stability, passivity.

Bio

Leila Bridgeman joined Duke as an assistant professor of mechanical engineering and materials science on January 1, 2018.

She received B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Applied Mathematics in 2008 and 2010 from McGill University, Montreal. In 2016, she completed a Ph.D. in Mechanical engineering, also at McGill University.

Her doctoral research involved a return to the foundational work of George Zames, exploring how the theory of conic sectors can be used to design controllers that guarantee closed-loop input-output stability when more conventional methods fail to apply. Her graduate studies involved research semesters at University of Michigan, University of Bern, and University of Victoria, along with an internship at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) in Boston.

Through her research, Leila strives to bridge the gap between theoretical results in robust and optimal control and their use in practice. She explores how the tools of numerical analysis and input-output stability theory can be applied to the most challenging of controls problems, including the control of delayed, open-loop unstable, and nonminimum-phase systems.  Her focus has been on the development of readily-applicable controller synthesis and stability analysis methods based on the evaluation of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs). Resulting publications have considered applications of this work to robotic, process control, and time-delay systems.

She is also interested in model predictive control (MPC) especially when applied to switched systems. Bridgeman continues to collaborate with colleagues at MERL, enabling the use of MPC in novel applications including networked systems, vehicle control, heating, and ventilation.

Education

• Ph.D. McGill University (Canada), 2016

Positions

• Assistant Professor in the Thomas Lord Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science

Courses Taught

• ME 758S: Curricular Practical Training
• ME 592: Research Independent Study in Mechanical Engineering or Material Science
• ME 591: Research Independent Study in Mechanical Engineering or Material Science
• ME 555: Advanced Topics in Mechanical Engineering
• ME 492: Special Projects in Mechanical Engineering
• ME 491: Special Projects in Mechanical Engineering
• ME 392: Undergraduate Projects in Mechanical Engineering
• ME 344L: Control of Dynamic Systems
• EGR 393: Research Projects in Engineering
• ECE 391: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering
• ECE 382L: Control of Dynamic Systems
• ECE 291: Projects in Electrical and Computer Engineering

Publications

• Strong AK, LoCicero EJ, Bridgeman LJ. Dissipative imitation learning for discrete dynamic output feedback control with sparse data sets. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. 2024 Sep 10;34(13):8519–37.
• Lavaei R, Bridgeman LJ. Systematic, Lyapunov-Based, Safe and Stabilizing Controller Synthesis for Constrained Nonlinear Systems. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 2024 May 1;69(5):3011–23.
• Locicero EJ, Bridgeman LJ. Structured, Reduced-Order H2-Conic Control. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 2024 Feb 1;69(2):1356–63.
• Hall R, Bridgeman L. Switched systems with transient unsustainable modes: Stability and feasibility. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. 2023 Jan 1;
• Lavaei R, Hall R, Danielson C, Bridgeman L. Constraint Enforcement via Tube-Based MPC Exploiting Switching Restrictions. IEEE Control Systems Letters. 2021 Nov 1;5(5):1789–94.
• Hall RA, Bridgeman LJ. Computationally Tractable Stability Criteria for Exogenously Switched Model Predictive Control. IEEE Control Systems Letters. 2021 Nov 1;5(5):1777–82.
• Locicero EJ, Bridgeman L. Sparsity Promoting H-Conic Control. IEEE Control Systems Letters. 2021 Oct 1;5(4):1453–8.
• Gong Z, Bridgeman LJ. Conic Sector Based Stability Criteria for Time-Delay Systems. In: Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. 2021. p. 4762–7.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Iterative H2-conic controller synthesis. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. 2019 Jul 25;29(11):3701–14.
• Danielson C, Bridgeman LJ, Di Cairano S. Necessary and sufficient conditions for constraint satisfaction in switched systems using switch‐robust control invariant sets. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. 2019 Jun;29(9):2589–602.
• Chee SA, Bridgeman L, Forbes AJR. Norm- and Linear-Inequality-Constrained State Estimation: An LMI Approach. In: 1st IEEE Conference on Control Technology and Applications. 2017.
• Danielson C, Bridgeman LJ, Cairano SD. Constraint Satisfaction for Switched Linear Systems with Restricted Dwell-Time. In: 2017 American Control Conference. 2017.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Conic Controller Synthesis that Minimizes an Upper Bound on the Closed-Loop $mathcalH_2$-Norm. In: 2017 American Control Conference. 2017.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Conic Bounds for Systems Subject to Delays. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 2017 Apr;62:2006–13.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. A Comparative Study of Input-Output Stability Results. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 2017;PP:1–1.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. The Extended Conic Sector Theorem. IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. 2016 Jul;61:1931–7.
• Bridgeman LJ, Danielson C, Cairano SD. Stability and feasibility of MPC for switched linear systems with dwell-time constraints. In: 2016 American Control Conference (ACC). 2016. p. 2681–6.
• Bridgeman LJ, Najih M, Forbes JR. Strictly positive real and conic system syntheses using observers. In: 2015 American Control Conference (ACC). 2015. p. 4862–7.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Conic-Sector-Based Control in the Presence of Delay??This work was funded in part through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada’s Postgraduate Scholarship and Discovery Grant programs. In: IFAC-PapersOnLine. 2015. p. 458–61.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. The minimum gain lemma. International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. 2015;25:2515–31.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. The exterior conic sector lemma. International Journal of Control. 2015;88:2250–63.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. The Minimum Gain Lemma. In: 2014 American Control Conference. 2014. p. 538–43.
• Bridgeman LJ, Caverly RJ, Forbes JR. Conic-sector-based controller synthesis: Theory and experiments. In: 2014 American Control Conference. 2014. p. 4292–7.
• Caverly RJ, Zlotnik DE, Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Saturated proportional derivative control of flexible-joint manipulators. Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing. 2014;30:658–66.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Conic-sector-based control to circumvent passivity violations. International Journal of Control. 2014;87:1467–77.
• Bridgeman LJ, Forbes JR. Conic-Sector-based control to circumvent passivity violations. In: 2013 American Control Conference. 2013. p. 6358–63.
• Bridgeman LJ, Wihler TP. Stability and a posteriori error analysis of discontinuous Galerkin methods for linearized elasticity. Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering. 2011;200:1543–57.

In The News

• Robotics for a New Generation (Apr 19, 2017 | Pratt School of Engineering)