Control and estimation in distributed actuator/sensor arrays with application to micro-systems

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Large arrays of spatially distributed dynamical systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in moderntechnological applications.These systems can range from the macroscopic,such as vehicular platoons orUnmaned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)in formation .ight to the microscopic such as micro-mirror or micro-cantilever arrays.A signi .cant impetus for research on these systems has come from the .eld of Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS)where the construction of very large arrays of sensors and actuators isnow feasible and economical.It is widely recognized that one of the next frontiers in this area is the systemsleve design of such MEMS,as well as their integrated distributed feedback control and estimation.From the systems point of view,these large actuator/sensor arrays are coupled dynamical systems witha large number of inputs and outputs.Traditional control and estimation techniques are not immediatelyapplicable to these systems for two main reasons:(a)the computational complexity due to the large scale isdaunting,and (b)a crucial design consideration is the distributed nature of control and estimation,i.e.whichsensors should communicate with which actuators,and the localization and decentralization requirements onthe controllers.The second problem,in its general form,is widely recognized to be a very di .cult one,withabout three decades of related research in the area of decentralized control.It is thus likely that progress willonly come from exploiting special structures inherent to certain spatially distributed control and estimationproblems.Recent work by the PI has elucidated e .ective methods for addressing both of the above issues forspatially distributed systems with certain types of invariances and symmetries.The methods also provideguidelines and benchmarks for systems that may not posses those symmetries as well.We propose to carry out a combined theoretical and experimental research program in the modelling,distributed controller design and estimation for large networks of sensors and actuators under a variety ofrelevant design constraints.These ideas and design techniques will be applied to the multi-micro-cantileversystems we have been testing at UCSB.The intellectual merits of the proposed research are twofold.The .rst is the development of systematicdesign methodologies for distributed robust control systems which have architectural constraints.These con-straints include the ocalization of information passing between sensors and control units.Such architecturalconstraints are a compromise between fully centralized and fully decentralized control,and are thus expectedto be tractable.Another important aspect of the proposed research is the synergy between MEMS problemsand control theory.Integrated systems design is becoming an increasingly important issue in MEMS.Ourwork in particular will contribute to this in two ways.The .rst is in using distributed estimation as a methodfor simplifying sensor design in a MEMS array,and the second is in the use of feedback (electronically)tosimplify the mechanical MEMS design.Broader impacts:This project is based on a synergistic interaction between control theory and MEMS.Ideas from control engineering are used to design radically simpler MEMS systems,and architectural issuesin MEMS systems are posing new control problems.Students involved in this research will have inter-disciplinary training in both dynamics and controls and in MEMS.We anticipate that our results willenable the design of e .cient MEMS systems which are expected to become an important component of thetechnological economy.