CS 267 : Applications of Parallel Computers Assignment 0

I am a second year graduate student pursuing my PhD in Mechanical Engineering with an emphasis in Controls. My main research interests lie in the realm of Model Predictive Control (MPC), an optimization based control technique. I am particularly interested in Distributed Model Predictive Control (DMPC), which seeks to form algorithms to split up computation of the MPC solution. I have been studying this topic with respect to building Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems in order to optimize energy efficiency and minimize utility costs. However, MPC is a general control strategy that can be applied to a variety of systems. In this class, I hope to learn about the capabilities and limitations of parallel computing as well as the methods for general implementation of parallel computing on distributed processors. Overall, I am interested in the potential that parallel computing presents for Model Predictive Control.