High-Level Local Control Strategies for the Coordination of Large Groups of Mobile Autonomous Agents

用于协调大型移动自治代理组的高级本地控制策略

• 批准号: 0524562
• 负责人: A. Morse
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2005
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2005-09-01 至 2008-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0524562&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Level; Local; Control; Strategies; Coordination

Intellectual Merit: Remarkable advances have been made in recent years in the development of small,agile, relatively inexpensive mobile autonomous vehicles and sensors, ultimately intended for a wide variety ofpurposes such as search and rescue, exploration, environmental monitoring, distributed sensing, the cleaningand maintaining of structures, etc. The existence of such devices and the anticipated development of still moreadvanced versions raises compelling questions: Can large numbers of small autonomous vehicles/sensors besuccessfully deployed in the form of a swarm or flock as a search team, an exploration group, or somethingsimilar, to cooperatively carry out a prescribed task and to respond as a group to high-level managementcommands? Can such a group reliably function with a centralized supervisor, with limited communicationbetween members, with limited power capabilities and/or with the roles of its members not all the same andperhaps changing with time. In broad terms these are the issues which motivate this proposed research.In particular we propose two pronged assault on the issue of coordinating large groups of mobile autonomousagents/mobile sensors. First, our intention is to continue the work we are already doing with NSFsupport, on the applications of graph rigidity to the maintaining of vehicle formations and to the localizationof sensors in a large, possible mobile network. Second we propose to continue studying prototype synchronizationand formation forming problems such as flocking and rendezvous, which we considered in priorwork, with the objective of uncovering new principles of cooperative control and new means to analyze suchsystems. In the former category, we plan to take a hard look at how one might modify the rigidity conceptso as to make in applicable to leader-follower formations. We will also look carefully at just what is requiredglobal rigidity wise, to enable one to determine the position of a single sensor in a non-rigid network. Wewill address all aspects of the distance constrained sensor network localization problem, in an e.ort to devisea provably correct distributed localization algorithm, for a moderately general class of networks.We will explore synchronization problems and group pattern forming problems using simple high levelpoint models. Our aim here is not so much to solve the problems we will pose as it is to rely on them tosuggest interesting questions about cooperative control, which are potentially applicable to more realisticmodels in more realistic settings. We will look at rate of convergence issues. We will attempt to generalizeand formalize the concept of analytic synchronization with the goal of creating a means of analyzing a largeclass of asynchronous multi-agent motion control problems. We will be particularly interest in the structureof the switched dynamical systems which result due to the changing of neighbors in a mobile network ofvehicles. What we want to know is if there are inherent structural properties we can exploit {as we did in the.ocking problem} to obtain convergence results, so as to avoid the NP hardness associated with convergencequestions with typical switched dynamical systems.Broader Impacts: This project will advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, trainingand learning in at least two di.erent ways. First, graduate students involved in the project will beexpected to attend and present there results at technical meetings. Second, project graduate students willcontribute to and participate in a short course on the topic which we envision organizing and giving towardsthe end of the project. We cannot think of any especially unusual way in which this project might broadenparticipation of under represented groups, although we certainly would encourage such participation. Thisproject will enhance infrastructure for research and education in at least two ways. First we expect tocontinue our cross-disciplinary collaboration with our environmental biologist colleagues with whom we'vealready been working for several years. Second, we expect to continue to collaborate with our experimentalistcolleagues at Yale and UCSB who are building a mobile sensor network test beds for trying out variouscontrol algorithms. We hope to continue to contribute to broadening dissemination to enhance scienti.cand technological understanding by organizing and running boni .de interdisciplinary technical gatheringslike the Block Island Workshop on Cooperative Control we co-organized and which took take place in June,2003. We also expect to give overview talks on the subject such as the plenary presentation we gave lastJuly at the MTNS meeting in Belgium, and the Penner Lecture we gave last November to the engineeringfaculty at UCSD.

智力优势：近年来，在小型、灵活、相对便宜的移动的自动驾驶车辆和传感器的开发方面取得了显着进展，最终用于各种各样的目的，如搜索和救援、勘探、环境监测、分布式传感、结构的清洁和维护等。大量的小型自动驾驶车辆/传感器是否可以作为一个搜索团队、一个探索团队或类似的团队，以集群或群体的形式被完全部署，以合作执行规定的任务，并作为一个群体对高层管理命令做出响应？这样的一个组是否可以可靠地与一个集中的管理者一起工作，成员之间的通信有限，权力能力有限，和/或其成员的角色不完全相同，可能会随着时间的推移而变化。从广义上讲，这些都是问题的动机，提出了research.In特别是，我们提出了两个双管齐下的攻击协调大组的移动的conciliousagents/移动的传感器的问题。首先，我们的目的是继续我们已经在NSF支持下所做的工作，在保持车辆编队和在一个大型的、可能的移动的网络中定位传感器方面应用图刚性。其次，我们建议继续研究原型同步和编队形成问题，如群集和会合，这是我们在以前的工作中考虑的，目的是揭示新的原则，合作控制和新的手段来分析suchsystems。在前一类中，我们计划认真研究如何修改刚性概念，使其适用于领导者-追随者编队。我们还将仔细研究所需的全局刚性，以使人们能够确定非刚性网络中单个传感器的位置。我们将解决距离受限传感器网络定位问题的各个方面，在e.ort中设计一个可证明正确的分布式定位算法，对于一个适度一般的网络类，我们将探讨同步问题和组模式形成问题，使用简单的高水平点模型。我们的目的不是解决我们将要提出的问题，而是依靠它们提出关于合作控制的有趣问题，这些问题可能适用于更现实的环境中的更现实的模型。我们将研究收敛速度问题。我们将尝试概括和形式化的概念，分析同步的目标是建立一个方法来分析一大类异步多智能体运动控制问题。我们将特别感兴趣的结构切换动力系统，由于邻居的变化，在移动的网络的车辆。我们想知道的是，是否有内在的结构属性，我们可以利用{我们在.ocking问题}，以获得收敛结果，以避免与收敛方程与典型的切换动力系统的NP硬度。更广泛的影响：这个项目将推进发现和理解，同时促进教学，培训和学习至少在两个不同的方式。首先，参与该项目的研究生将被期望参加并在技术会议上展示结果。第二，项目研究生将贡献并参与一个关于该主题的短期课程，我们设想在项目结束时组织和提供。我们想不出任何特别不寻常的方式，使这个项目可以扩大代表性不足的群体的参与，尽管我们肯定会鼓励这种参与。该项目将至少在两个方面加强研究和教育的基础设施。首先，我们希望继续我们的跨学科合作与我们的环境生物学家的同事，我们已经与他们合作了几年。第二，我们希望继续与我们在耶鲁大学和UCSB的实验学家同事合作，他们正在建立一个移动的传感器网络测试床，以尝试各种控制算法。我们希望继续通过组织和举办跨学科的技术研讨会，如2003年6月我们共同组织的布洛克岛合作控制研讨会，为扩大传播，提高科学和技术的理解做出贡献。我们还希望就这一主题进行概述性的演讲，例如去年7月在比利时举行的MTNS会议上的全体演讲，以及去年11月我们在UCSD为工程学院举办的Penner讲座。