Online Feedback Optimization for Monotone Systems without Timescale Separation

Abstract: Online Feedback Optimization (OFO) steers a dynamical plant to a cost-efficient steady-state, only relying on input-output sensitivity information, rather than on a full plant model. Unlike traditional feedforward approaches, OFO leverages real-time measurements from the plant, thereby inheriting the robustness and adaptability of feedback control. Unfortunately, existing theoretical guarantees for OFO assumes that the controller operates on a slower timescale than the plant, which can affect responsiveness and transient performance. In this paper, we focus on relaxing this ``timescale separation'' assumption. Specifically, we consider the class of monotone systems, and we prove that OFO can achieve an optimal operating point, regardless of the time constants of controller and plant. By leveraging a small gain theorem for monotone systems, we derive several sufficient conditions for global convergence. Notably, these conditions depend only on the steady-state behavior of the plant, and they are entirely independent of the transient dynamics.