4,854 research outputs found
Distributed allocation of mobile sensing swarms in gyre flows
We address the synthesis of distributed control policies to enable a swarm of
homogeneous mobile sensors to maintain a desired spatial distribution in a
geophysical flow environment, or workspace. In this article, we assume the
mobile sensors (or robots) have a "map" of the environment denoting the
locations of the Lagrangian coherent structures or LCS boundaries. Based on
this information, we design agent-level hybrid control policies that leverage
the surrounding fluid dynamics and inherent environmental noise to enable the
team to maintain a desired distribution in the workspace. We establish the
stability properties of the ensemble dynamics of the distributed control
policies. Since realistic quasi-geostrophic ocean models predict double-gyre
flow solutions, we use a wind-driven multi-gyre flow model to verify the
feasibility of the proposed distributed control strategy and compare the
proposed control strategy with a baseline deterministic allocation strategy.
Lastly, we validate the control strategy using actual flow data obtained by our
coherent structure experimental testbed.Comment: 10 pages, 14 Figures, added reference
Towards time-varying proximal dynamics in Multi-Agent Network Games
Distributed decision making in multi-agent networks has recently attracted
significant research attention thanks to its wide applicability, e.g. in the
management and optimization of computer networks, power systems, robotic teams,
sensor networks and consumer markets. Distributed decision-making problems can
be modeled as inter-dependent optimization problems, i.e., multi-agent
game-equilibrium seeking problems, where noncooperative agents seek an
equilibrium by communicating over a network. To achieve a network equilibrium,
the agents may decide to update their decision variables via proximal dynamics,
driven by the decision variables of the neighboring agents. In this paper, we
provide an operator-theoretic characterization of convergence with a
time-invariant communication network. For the time-varying case, we consider
adjacency matrices that may switch subject to a dwell time. We illustrate our
investigations using a distributed robotic exploration example.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Visibility maintenance via controlled invariance for leader-follower Dubins-like vehicles
The paper studies the visibility maintenance problem (VMP) for a
leader-follower pair of Dubins-like vehicles with input constraints, and
proposes an original solution based on the notion of controlled invariance. The
nonlinear model describing the relative dynamics of the vehicles is interpreted
as linear uncertain system, with the leader robot acting as an external
disturbance. The VMP is then reformulated as a linear constrained regulation
problem with additive disturbances (DLCRP). Positive D-invariance conditions
for linear uncertain systems with parametric disturbance matrix are introduced
and used to solve the VMP when box bounds on the state, control input and
disturbance are considered. The proposed design procedure is shown to be easily
adaptable to more general working scenarios. Extensive simulation results are
provided to illustrate the theory and show the effectiveness of our approachComment: 17 pages, 24 figures, extended version of the journal paper of the
authors submitted to Automatic
Coordinated Robot Navigation via Hierarchical Clustering
We introduce the use of hierarchical clustering for relaxed, deterministic
coordination and control of multiple robots. Traditionally an unsupervised
learning method, hierarchical clustering offers a formalism for identifying and
representing spatially cohesive and segregated robot groups at different
resolutions by relating the continuous space of configurations to the
combinatorial space of trees. We formalize and exploit this relation,
developing computationally effective reactive algorithms for navigating through
the combinatorial space in concert with geometric realizations for a particular
choice of hierarchical clustering method. These constructions yield
computationally effective vector field planners for both hierarchically
invariant as well as transitional navigation in the configuration space. We
apply these methods to the centralized coordination and control of
perfectly sensed and actuated Euclidean spheres in a -dimensional ambient
space (for arbitrary and ). Given a desired configuration supporting a
desired hierarchy, we construct a hybrid controller which is quadratic in
and algebraic in and prove that its execution brings all but a measure zero
set of initial configurations to the desired goal with the guarantee of no
collisions along the way.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures, 8 tables, extended version of a paper in
preparation for submission to a journa
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