Minimax Iterative Dynamic Game: Application to Nonlinear Robot Control Tasks

Multistage decision policies provide useful control strategies in high-dimensional state spaces, particularly in complex control tasks. However, they exhibit weak performance guarantees in the presence of disturbance, model mismatch, or model uncertainties. This brittleness limits their use in high-risk scenarios. We present how to quantify the sensitivity of such policies in order to inform of their robustness capacity. We also propose a minimax iterative dynamic game framework for designing robust policies in the presence of disturbance/uncertainties. We test the quantification hypothesis on a carefully designed deep neural network policy; we then pose a minimax iterative dynamic game (iDG) framework for improving policy robustness in the presence of adversarial disturbances. We evaluate our iDG framework on a mecanum-wheeled robot, whose goal is to find a ocally robust optimal multistage policy that achieve a given goal-reaching task. The algorithm is simple and adaptable for designing meta-learning/deep policies that are robust against disturbances, model mismatch, or model uncertainties, up to a disturbance bound. Videos of the results are on the author's website, http://ecs.utdallas.edu/~opo140030/iros18/iros2018.html, while the codes for reproducing our experiments are on github, https://github.com/lakehanne/youbot/tree/rilqg. A self-contained environment for reproducing our results is on docker, https://hub.docker.com/r/lakehanne/youbotbuntu14/Comment: 2018 International Conference on Intelligent Robots and System

Robust gradient-based discrete-time iterative learning control algorithms

This paper considers the use of matrix models and the robustness of a gradient-based Iterative Learning Control (ILC) algorithm using both fixed learning gains and gains derived from parameter optimization. The philosophy of the paper is to ensure monotonic convergence with respect to the mean square value of the error time series. The paper provides a complete and rigorous analysis for the systematic use of matrix models in ILC. Matrix models make analysis clearer and provide necessary and sufficient conditions for robust monotonic convergence. They also permit the construction of sufficient frequency domain conditions for robust monotonic convergence on finite time intervals for both causal and non-causal controller dynamics. The results are compared with recent results for robust inverse-model based ILC algorithms and it is seen that the algorithm has the potential to improve robustness to high frequency modelling errors provided that resonances within the plant bandwidth have been suppressed by feedback or series compensation

CAutoCSD-evolutionary search and optimisation enabled computer automated control system design

This paper attempts to set a unified scene for various linear time-invariant (LTI) control system design schemes, by transforming the existing concept of 'Computer-Aided Control System Design' (CACSD) to the novel 'Computer-Automated Control System Design' (CAutoCSD). The first step towards this goal is to accommodate, under practical constraints, various design objectives that are desirable in both time and frequency-domains. Such performance-prioritised unification is aimed to relieve practising engineers from having to select a particular control scheme and from sacrificing certain performance goals resulting from pre-committing to the adopted scheme. With the recent progress in evolutionary computing based extra-numeric, multi-criterion search and optimisation techniques, such unification of LTI control schemes becomes feasible, analytically and practically, and the resultant designs can be creative. The techniques developed are applied to, and illustrated by, three design problems. The unified approach automatically provides an integrator for zero-steady state error in velocity control of a DC motor, meets multiple objectives in designing an LTI controller for a non-minimum phase plant and offers a high-performing LTI controller network for a nonlinear chemical process

<i>H</i>₂ and mixed <i>H</i>₂/<i>H</i>_∞ Stabilization and Disturbance Attenuation for Differential Linear Repetitive Processes

Repetitive processes are a distinct class of two-dimensional systems (i.e., information propagation in two independent directions) of both systems theoretic and applications interest. A systems theory for them cannot be obtained by direct extension of existing techniques from standard (termed 1-D here) or, in many cases, two-dimensional (2-D) systems theory. Here, we give new results towards the development of such a theory in H2 and mixed H2/H∞ settings. These results are for the sub-class of so-called differential linear repetitive processes and focus on the fundamental problems of stabilization and disturbance attenuation

Relaxing Fundamental Assumptions in Iterative Learning Control

Iterative learning control (ILC) is perhaps best decribed as an open loop feedforward control technique where the feedforward signal is learned through repetition of a single task. As the name suggests, given a dynamic system operating on a finite time horizon with the same desired trajectory, ILC aims to iteratively construct the inverse image (or its approximation) of the desired trajectory to improve transient tracking. In the literature, ILC is often interpreted as feedback control in the iteration domain due to the fact that learning controllers use information from past trials to drive the tracking error towards zero. However, despite the significant body of literature and powerful features, ILC is yet to reach widespread adoption by the control community, due to several assumptions that restrict its generality when compared to feedback control. In this dissertation, we relax some of these assumptions, mainly the fundamental invariance assumption, and move from the idea of learning through repetition to two dimensional systems, specifically repetitive processes, that appear in the modeling of engineering applications such as additive manufacturing, and sketch out future research directions for increased practicality: We develop an L1 adaptive feedback control based ILC architecture for increased robustness, fast convergence, and high performance under time varying uncertainties and disturbances. Simulation studies of the behavior of this combined L1-ILC scheme under iteration varying uncertainties lead us to the robust stability analysis of iteration varying systems, where we show that these systems are guaranteed to be stable when the ILC update laws are designed to be robust, which can be done using existing methods from the literature. As a next step to the signal space approach adopted in the analysis of iteration varying systems, we shift the focus of our work to repetitive processes, and show that the exponential stability of a nonlinear repetitive system is equivalent to that of its linearization, and consequently uniform stability of the corresponding state space matrix.PhDElectrical Engineering: SystemsUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/133232/1/altin_1.pd

Robust Stability of Iterative Learning Control Schemes

A notion of robust stability is developed for iterative learning control in the context of disturbance attenuation. The size of the unmodelled dynamics is captured via a gap distance, which in turn is related to the standard H2 gap metric, and the resulting robustness certificate is qualitatively equivalent to that obtained in classical robust H∞ theory. A bound on the robust stability margin for a specific adaptive ILC design is established

Machine learning based iterative learning control for non-repetitive time-varying systems

The repetitive tracking task for time-varying systems (TVSs) with non-repetitive time-varying parameters, which is also called non-repetitive TVSs, is realized in this paper using iterative learning control (ILC). A machine learning (ML) based nominal model update mechanism, which utilizes the linear regression technique to update the nominal model at each ILC trial only using the current trial information, is proposed for non-repetitive TVSs in order to enhance the ILC performance. Given that the ML mechanism forces the model uncertainties to remain within the ILC robust tolerance, an ILC update law is proposed to deal with non-repetitive TVSs. How to tune parameters inside ML and ILC algorithms to achieve the desired aggregate performance is also provided. The robustness and reliability of the proposed method are verified by simulations. Comparison with current state-of-the-art demonstrates its superior control performance in terms of controlling precision. This paper broadens ILC applications from time-invariant systems to non-repetitive TVSs, adopts ML regression technique to estimate non-repetitive time-varying parameters between two ILC trials and proposes a detailed parameter tuning mechanism to achieve desired performance, which are the main contributions