CAREER: Control of Mobile Robot Networks: Integrating the Communication and Physical Domains

移动的机器人网络是最近出现的最有效的方式来解决各种各样的任务，从监视和搜索和救援任务，以合作的操纵和机器人手术。这些网络由大量高度互连的廉价、小型和敏捷的代理组成，这些代理共同产生了更模块化、更强大和可扩展的系统，可以有效地处理不确定性、故障组件和设计复杂性。与此同时，代理有限的计算、功率和通信能力需要新的通信、合作和专业化技术，提出了现代控制理论和机器人与通信和网络离散科学接口的基本问题。该项目的目标是开发正式的方法和算法，以解决与物理（机器人）集成相关的控制问题。和通信域，它们定义了移动的机器人网络。特别是，PI正在开发分布式技术，以集成机器人的移动性，动态和约束与丰富的通信模型，包括电源控制，衰落，优先级流等，确保任务完成，？闭环？在文献和实验中的图论方法是本研究的主要部分，它提供了许多优于其他方法的优点，包括可以用更少的假设实现的机器人网络的更真实的模型，较低的计算复杂度和易于分布式实现。如果没有必要的理论和实验，机器人和通信的最新进展不能有效地集成在真实的平台上支持.这项研究提供了这些必要的组件，以促进移动的自治系统的设计和促进其采用。研究计划的一个组成部分也是涉及K-12，本科和研究生教育的教育议程。教育计划的更广泛的影响是向新的工程师和研究人员介绍多学科研究的潜力，以及促进大学预科学生的研究和工程职业。

Mobile robot networks are recently emerging as the most efficient way to address a large variety of tasks ranging from surveillance and search-and-rescue missions to cooperative manipulation and robotic surgery. These networks consist of large and highly interconnected groups of cheap, small and agile agents that collectively result in more modular, robust and scalable systems that can efficiently handle uncertainties, faulty components and design complexity. At the same time, the limited computation, power and communication capabilities of the agents require new communication, cooperation and specialization techniques, that raise fundamental problems on the interface of modern control theory and robotics with the discrete science of communications and networking.The goal of this project is to develop formal methods and algorithms to address the control issues related to integration of the physical (robots) and communication domains, that define mobile robot networks. In particular, the PI is developing distributed techniques to integrate robot mobility, dynamics and constraints with rich models of communication, including power control, fading, priority flows etc. Ensuring task completion, ?loop closure? with graph theoretic approaches in the literature and experimentation are major parts of this research, which offers a number of advantages over other approaches including more realistic models of robot networks that can be implemented with fewer assumptions, lower computational complexity and easiness of distributed implementation.Recent advances in robotic and communications can not be efficiently integrated on real platforms without the necessary theoretical and experimental support. This research provides these necessary components in facilitating the design of mobile autonomous systems and fostering their adoption. An integral part of the research program is also an educational agenda that involves K-12, undergraduate, and graduate level education. The broader impact of the educational program is to introduce new engineers and researchers to the potentials of multidisciplinary research as well as to promote research and engineering careers among pre-college students.