Feedback Control of Waiting Times

TL;DR

This paper explores feedback control mechanisms to regulate waiting times in transport systems, comparing active and passive feedback, and applying optimal control theory to optimize temporal correlations.

Contribution

It introduces a general formalism for controlling waiting time distributions and applies it to a simple transport model, analyzing control costs and optimization strategies.

Findings

Feedback control can effectively regulate waiting times.

Active feedback reduces fluctuations more than passive feedback.

Optimal control strategies improve transport efficiency.

Abstract

Feedback loops are known as a versatile tool for controlling transport in small systems, which usually have large intrinsic fluctuations. Here we investigate the control of a temporal correlation function, the waiting time distribution, under active and passive feedback conditions. We develop a general formalism and then specify to the simple unidirectional transport model, where we compare costs of open loop and feedback control and use methods from optimal control theory to optimize waiting time distributions.