Applied Antifragility in Technical Systems

The book purpose is to build a foundational knowledge base by applying antifragile system design, analysis, and development in technical systems, with a focus on traffic engineering, robotics, and control engineering. The authors are interested in formalizing principles and an apparatus that turns the basic concept of antifragility into a tool for designing and building closed-loop technical systems that behave beyond robust in the face of uncertainty.As coined in the book of Nassim Taleb, antifragility is a property of a system to gain from uncertainty, randomness, and volatility, opposite to what fragility would incur. An antifragile system s response to external perturbations is beyond robust, such that small stressors can strengthen the future response of the system by adding a strong anticipation component. The work of the Applied Antifragility Group in traffic control and robotics, led by the authors, provides a good overview on the current research status.