A Brief Survey of Stochastic Resonance and Its Application to Control

Noise is generally considered as nuisance in engineering. Hence engineers routinely attempt to filter out noise. But quite remarkably a counter intuitive phenomenon was found in 1980s that changed the perception of noise, giving birth to a phenomenon called Stochastic resonance (SR). In this paper, we review various phenomena that are benefited by noise. Quite obviously, we extend those ideas to Control Systems design. We provide 3 examples: a randomized algorithm for a linear state feedback control law, (ii) minimizing limit cycles in nonlinear systems, and (iii) antilock braking system (ABS) design. Finally, we present some of our arguments in favour of stochastic resonance as a potential tool for system design in a broader perspective.