Bearing-only formation control with auxiliary distance measurements, leaders, and collision avoidance

We address the controller synthesis problem for distributed formation control. Our solution requires only relative bearing measurements (as opposed to full translations), and is based on the exact gradient of a Lyapunov function with only global minimizers (independently from the formation topology). These properties allow a simple proof of global asymptotic convergence, and extensions for including distance measurements, leaders and collision avoidance. We validate our approach through simulations and comparison with other stateof-the-art algorithms.ARL grant W911NF-08-2-0004, ARO grant W911NF-13-1-0350, ONR grants N00014-07-1-0829, N00014-14-1-0510, N00014-15-1-2115, NSF grant IIS-1426840, CNS-1521617 and United Technologies

Pose consensus based on dual quaternion algebra with application to decentralized formation control of mobile manipulators

This paper presents a solution based on dual quaternion algebra to the general problem of pose (i.e., position and orientation) consensus for systems composed of multiple rigid-bodies. The dual quaternion algebra is used to model the agents' poses and also in the distributed control laws, making the proposed technique easily applicable to time-varying formation control of general robotic systems. The proposed pose consensus protocol has guaranteed convergence when the interaction among the agents is represented by directed graphs with directed spanning trees, which is a more general result when compared to the literature on formation control. In order to illustrate the proposed pose consensus protocol and its extension to the problem of formation control, we present a numerical simulation with a large number of free-flying agents and also an application of cooperative manipulation by using real mobile manipulators

Multiplex PI-Control for Consensus in Networks of Heterogeneous Linear Agents

In this paper, we propose a multiplex proportional-integral approach, for solving consensus problems in networks of heterogeneous nodes dynamics affected by constant disturbances. The proportional and integral actions are deployed on two different layers across the network, each with its own topology. Sufficient conditions for convergence are derived that depend upon the structure of the network, the parameters characterizing the control layers and the node dynamics. The effectiveness of the theoretical results is illustrated using a power network model as a representative example.Comment: 13 pages, 6 Figures, Preprint submitted to Automatic

Bearing-based formation control with second-order agent dynamics

We consider the distributed formation control problem for a network of agents using visual measurements. We propose solutions that are based on bearing (and optionally distance) measurements, and agents with double integrator dynamics. We assume that a subset of the agents can track, in addition to their neighbors, a set of static features in the environment. These features are not considered to be part of the formation, but they are used to asymptotically control the velocity of the agents. We analyze the convergence properties of the proposed protocols analytically and through simulations.Published versionSupporting documentatio

Internet of robotic things : converging sensing/actuating, hypoconnectivity, artificial intelligence and IoT Platforms

The Internet of Things (IoT) concept is evolving rapidly and influencing newdevelopments in various application domains, such as the Internet of MobileThings (IoMT), Autonomous Internet of Things (A-IoT), Autonomous Systemof Things (ASoT), Internet of Autonomous Things (IoAT), Internetof Things Clouds (IoT-C) and the Internet of Robotic Things (IoRT) etc.that are progressing/advancing by using IoT technology. The IoT influencerepresents new development and deployment challenges in different areassuch as seamless platform integration, context based cognitive network integration,new mobile sensor/actuator network paradigms, things identification(addressing, naming in IoT) and dynamic things discoverability and manyothers. The IoRT represents new convergence challenges and their need to be addressed, in one side the programmability and the communication ofmultiple heterogeneous mobile/autonomous/robotic things for cooperating,their coordination, configuration, exchange of information, security, safetyand protection. Developments in IoT heterogeneous parallel processing/communication and dynamic systems based on parallelism and concurrencyrequire new ideas for integrating the intelligent “devices”, collaborativerobots (COBOTS), into IoT applications. Dynamic maintainability, selfhealing,self-repair of resources, changing resource state, (re-) configurationand context based IoT systems for service implementation and integrationwith IoT network service composition are of paramount importance whennew “cognitive devices” are becoming active participants in IoT applications.This chapter aims to be an overview of the IoRT concept, technologies,architectures and applications and to provide a comprehensive coverage offuture challenges, developments and applications