Cooperative Adaptive Control for Cloud-Based Robotics

This paper studies collaboration through the cloud in the context of cooperative adaptive control for robot manipulators. We first consider the case of multiple robots manipulating a common object through synchronous centralized update laws to identify unknown inertial parameters. Through this development, we introduce a notion of Collective Sufficient Richness, wherein parameter convergence can be enabled through teamwork in the group. The introduction of this property and the analysis of stable adaptive controllers that benefit from it constitute the main new contributions of this work. Building on this original example, we then consider decentralized update laws, time-varying network topologies, and the influence of communication delays on this process. Perhaps surprisingly, these nonidealized networked conditions inherit the same benefits of convergence being determined through collective effects for the group. Simple simulations of a planar manipulator identifying an unknown load are provided to illustrate the central idea and benefits of Collective Sufficient Richness.Comment: ICRA 201

Cooperative monocular-based SLAM for multi-UAV systems in GPS-denied environments

This work presents a cooperative monocular-based SLAM approach for multi-UAV systems that can operate in GPS-denied environments. The main contribution of the work is to show that, using visual information obtained from monocular cameras mounted onboard aerial vehicles flying in formation, the observability properties of the whole system are improved. This fact is especially notorious when compared with other related visual SLAM configurations. In order to improve the observability properties, some measurements of the relative distance between the UAVs are included in the system. These relative distances are also obtained from visual information. The proposed approach is theoretically validated by means of a nonlinear observability analysis. Furthermore, an extensive set of computer simulations is presented in order to validate the proposed approach. The numerical simulation results show that the proposed system is able to provide a good position and orientation estimation of the aerial vehicles flying in formation.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version