# Linear Relation Algebra of Circuits with HMatrix

Oooh this is a fun one.

I’ve talked before about relation algebra and I think it is pretty neat. http://www.philipzucker.com/a-short-skinny-on-relations-towards-the-algebra-of-programming/. In that blog post, I used finite relations. In principle, they are simple to work with. We can perform relation algebra operations like composition, meet, and join by brute force enumeration.

Unfortunately, brute force may not always be an option. First off, the finite relations grow so enormous as to be make this infeasible. Secondly, it is not insane to talk about relations or regions with an infinite number of elements, such as some continuous blob in 2D space. In that case, we can’t even in principle enumerate all the points in the region. What are we to do? We need to develop some kind of finite parametrization of regions to manipulate. This parametrization basically can’t possibly be complete in some sense, and we may choose more or less powerful systems of description for computational reasons.

In this post, we are going to be talking about linear or affine subspaces of a continuous space. These subspaces are hyperplanes. Linear subspaces have to go through the origin, while affine spaces can have an offset from the origin.

In the previous post, I mentioned that the finite relations formed a lattice, with operations meet and join. These operations were the same as set intersection and union so the introduction of the extra terminology meet and join felt a bit unwarranted. Now the meet and join aren’t union and intersection anymore. We have chosen to not have the capability to represent the union of two vectors, instead we can only represent the smallest subspace that contains them both, which is the union closed under vector addition. For example, the join of a line and point will be the plane that goes through both.

Linear/Affine stuff is great because it is so computational. Most questions you cant to ask are answerable by readily available numerical linear algebra packages. In this case, we’ll use the Haskell package HMatrix, which is something like a numpy/scipy equivalent for Haskell. We’re going to use type-level indices to denote the sizes and partitioning of these spaces so we’ll need some helper functions.

In case I miss any extensions, make typos, etc, you can find a complete compiling version here https://github.com/philzook58/ConvexCat/blob/master/src/LinRel.hs

In analogy with sets of tuples for defining finite relations, we partition the components of the linear spaces to be “input” and “output” indices/variables $\begin{bmatrix} x_1 & x_2 & x_3 & ... & y_1 & y_2 & y_3 & ... \end{bmatrix}$. This partition is somewhat arbitrary and easily moved around, but the weakening of strict notions of input and output as compared to functions is the source of the greater descriptive power of relations.

Relations are extensions of functions, so linear relations are an extension of linear maps. A linear map has the form $y = Ax$. A linear relation has the form $Ax + By = 0$. An affine map has the form $y = Ax + b$ and an affine relation has the form $Ax + By = b$.

There are at least two useful concrete representation for subspaces.

1. We can write a matrix $A$ and vector $b$ down that corresponds to affine constraints. $Ax = b$. The subspace described is the nullspace of $A$ plus a solution of the equation. The rows of A are orthogonal to the space.
2. We can hold onto generators of subspace. $x = A' l+b$ where l parametrizes the subspace. In other words, the subspace is generated by / is the span of the columns of $A'$. It is the range of $A'$.

We’ll call these two representations the H-Rep and V-Rep, borrowing terminology from similar representations in polytopes (describing a polytope by the inequalities that define it’s faces or as the convex combination of it’s vertices). https://inf.ethz.ch/personal/fukudak/lect/pclect/notes2015/PolyComp2015.pdf These two representations are dual in many respects.

It is useful to have both reps and interconversion routines, because different operations are easy in the two representations. Any operations defined on one can be defined on the other by sandwiching between these conversion functions. Hence, we basically only need to define operations for one of the reps (if we don’t care too much about efficiency loss which, fair warning, is out the window for today). The bulk of computation will actually be performed by these interconversion routines. The HMatrix function nullspace performs an SVD under the hood and gathers up the space with 0 singular values.

These linear relations form a category. I’m not using the Category typeclass because I need BEnum constraints hanging around. The identity relations is $x = y$ aka $Ix - Iy = 0$.

Composing relations is done by combining the constraints of the two relations and then projecting out the interior variables. Taking the conjunction of constraints is easiest in the H-Rep, where we just need to vertically stack the individual constraints. Projection easily done in the V-rep, where you just need to drop the appropriate section of the generator vectors. So we implement this operation by flipping between the two.

We can implement the general cadre of relation operators, meet, join, converse. I feel the converse is the most relational thing of all. It makes inverting a function nearly a no-op.

Relational inclusion is the question of subspace inclusion. It is fairly easy to check if a VRep is in an HRep (just see plug the generators into the constraints and see if they obey them) and by using the conversion functions we can define it for arbitrary combos of H and V.

It is useful the use the direct sum of the spaces as a monoidal product.

A side note: Void causes some consternation. Void is the type with no elements and is the index type of a 0 dimensional space. It is the unit object of the monoidal product. Unfortunately by an accident of the standard Haskell definitions, actual Void is not a BEnum. So, I did a disgusting hack. Let us not discuss it more.

### Circuits

Baez and Fong have an interesting paper where they describe building circuits using a categorical graphical calculus. We have the pieces to go about something similar. What we have here is a precise way in which circuit diagrams can be though of as string diagrams in a monoidal category of linear relations.

An idealized wire has two quantities associated with it, the current flowing through it and the voltage it is at.

When we connect wires, the currents must be conserved and the voltages must be equal. hid and hcompose from above still achieve that. Composing two independent circuits in parallel is achieve by hpar.

We will want some basic tinker toys to work with.

A resistor in series has the same current at both ends and a voltage drop proportional to the current

Composing two resistors in parallel adds the resistance. (resistor r1) <<< (resistor r2) == resistor (r1 + r2))

A bridging resistor allows current to flow between the two branches

Composing two bridge circuits is putting the bridge resistors in parallel. The conductance $G=\frac{1}{R}$ of resistors in parallel adds. hcompose (bridge r1) (bridge r2) == bridge 1 / (1/r1 + 1/r2).

An open circuit allows no current to flow and ends a wire. open ~ resistor infinity

At branching points, the voltage is maintained, but the current splits.

This cmerge combinator could also be built using a short == bridge 0 , composing a branch with open, and then absorbing the Void away.

We can bend wires up or down by using a composition of cmerge and open.

Voltage and current sources enforce current and voltage to be certain values

Measurements of circuits proceed by probes.

Inductors and capacitors could be included easily, but would require the entries of the HMatrix values to be polynomials in the frequency $\omega$, which it does not support (but it could!). We’ll leave those off for another day.

We actually can determine that the rules suggested above are being followed by computation.

### Bits and Bobbles

• Homogenous systems are usually a bit more elegant to deal with, although a bit more unfamiliar and abstract.
• Could make a pandas like interface for linear relations that uses numpy/scipy.sparse for the computation. All the swapping and associating is kind of fun to design, not so much to use. Labelled n-way relations are nice for users.
• Implicit/Lazy evaluation. We should let the good solvers do the work when possible. We implemented our operations eagerly. We don’t have to. By allowing hidden variables inside our relations, we can avoid the expensive linear operations until it is useful to actually compute on them.
• Relational division = quotient spaces?
• DSL. One of the beauties of the pointfree/categorical approach is that you avoid the need for binding forms. This makes for a very easily manipulated DSL. The transformations feel like those of ordinary algebra and you don’t have to worry about the subtleties of index renaming or substitution under binders.
• Sparse is probably really good. We have lots of identity matrices and simple rearrangements. It is very wasteful to use dense operations on these.
• Schur complement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schur_complement are the name in the game for projecting out pieces of linear problems. We have some overlap.
• Linear relations -> Polyhedral relations -> Convex Relations. Linear is super computable, polyhedral can blow up. Rearrange a DSL to abuse Linear programming as much as possible for queries.
• Network circuits. There is an interesting subclass of circuits that is designed to be pretty composable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-port_network Two port networks are a very useful subclass of electrical circuits. They model transmission lines fairly well, and easily composable for filter construction.

It is standard to describe these networks by giving a linear function between two variables and the other two variables. Depending on your choice of which variables depend on which, these are called the z-parameters, y-parameters, h-parameters, scattering parameters, abcd parameters. There are tables of formula for converting from one form to the others. The different parameters hold different use cases for composition and combining in parallel or series. From the perspective of linear relations this all seems rather silly. The necessity for so many descriptions and the confusing relationship between them comes from the unnecessary and overly rigid requirement of have a linear function-like relationship rather than just a general relation, which depending of the circuit may not even be available (there are degenerate configurations where two of the variables do not imply the values of the other two). A function relationship is always a lie (although a sometimes useful one), as there is always back-reaction of new connections.

The relation model also makes clearer how to build lumped models out of continuous ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumped-element_model

null
• Because the type indices have no connection to the actual data types (they are phantom) it is a wise idea to use smart constructors that check that the sizes of the matrices makes sense.
• Nonlinear circuits. Grobner Bases and polynomial relations?
• Quadratic optimization under linear constraints. Can’t get it to come out right yet. Clutch for Kalman filters. Nice for many formulations like least power, least action, minimum energy principles. Edit: I did more in this direction here http://www.philipzucker.com/categorical-lqr-control-with-linear-relations/
• Quadratic Operators -> Convex operators. See last chapter of Rockafellar.
• Duality of controllers and filters. It is well known (I think) that for ever controller algorithm there is a filter algorithm that is basically the same thing.
• LQR – Kalman
• Viterbi filter – Value function table
• particle filter – Monte Carlo control
• Extended Kalman – iLQR-ish? Use local approximation of dynamics
• unscented kalman – ?

## 5 thoughts on “Linear Relation Algebra of Circuits with HMatrix”

1. Can you elaborate on ‘can’t get it to come out right’ with respect to quadratic optimization with linear constraints?

Are you trying to implement that in Haskell using HMatrix, but for these `open networks’?

1. philzook58 says:

Here’s a half digested brain dump. I’m saying the things that only vaguely make sense even to myself until I concretize them with some kind of implementation.

I’ve been wondering about how convex optimization can be usefully fit into a framework of categorical combinators for some time. Convex optimization (linear programs, quadratic programs, sdp) is a very tractable set of problems with wonderful applications and mathematics.
I am tempted by the fact that the ADMM algorithm appears to be a compositional algorithm for convex optimization, that taking the convex hull can be seen as a monad, and that the relaxation of integer programs to convex continuous ones can be thought of as an adjunction/galois connection. In particular in trajectory optimization problems, it is natural to think of the trajectories of systems composing in time, and monoidally composing in parallel. And hence kalman filters / model predictive controllers.

This later post http://www.philipzucker.com/categorical-lqr-control-with-linear-relations/ is actually a somewhat but not entirely satisfying implementation of exactly what I was referring to when I mentioned Quadratic objectives with linear equality constraints. I do use haskell and Hmatrix to implement a kalman filter. It is not satisfying in the sense that I had to do a lot of paper and pencil to convert the natural formulation as a quadratic optimization problem into linear relations via the KKT conditions/lagrange multiplier method. But perhaps this is the general purpose way forward? It seems to fit with a method for bilevel programming, which has the flavor of a game which would be a natural place to attempt to formulate solvers in the style of Jules Hedges compositional game theory. Pursuit evasion games is an fascinating intersection of control and game theory that I’d only recently heard of.

There is some ugliness that the natural way to combine objective functions is to add them, which means their relative weighting is important. The constraints don’t work that way. I have some vague intuitive sense that satisfaction problems are easier to formulate / more fundamental than optimization problems.

Part of the problem is that categorical combinators seem too tempted to reach outside of the realm of expressivity of single quantifier / convex optimization problems. In relation algebra, just having composition and no division seems to severely undercut the expressivity of the system, but relation composition is pretty easy and division is kind of hard to compute. And mixing them seems to drive you up the polynomial hierarchy.