Analysis and Design of Robust Control Schemes for Networks of Non-Uniform Infrastructure Responding to Aggregated User Demand

随着传感和通信技术变得更快、更小、更便宜，它们与我们世界的共同基础设施和公用事业越来越紧密地结合在一起。这项新技术广泛向公众开放，可以用来创建更先进的系统，在这些系统中，智能设备通过实时通信网络与用户和运营商联系起来。现代的例子包括交通系统、电网、智能建筑和自动化工厂环境。用户和运营商之间的协调可以极大地提高这些联网基础设施系统的效率，同时减少拥堵和高需求的问题。该奖项支持基础研究，为自动控制算法的开发提供必要的知识和技术，这些算法可以在保证性能的情况下实现这些目标。多个用户和运营商的协调是非常具有挑战性的，因为交互仅在本地发生，用户/运营商的需求可能由于不可预测的事件、高需求期间的服务的潜在限制以及智能设备操作的不可靠性而快速变化。这项研究将在现有的理论工具之间架起桥梁，并开发新的工具，用于指导新的稳健算法的设计。因此，这项研究的结果将有利于美国的经济和社会。这项研究涉及控制理论、分布式计算、优化和机器人学等多个学科。多学科方法将有助于扩大未被充分代表的群体在研究中的参与，并对工程教育产生积极影响。本项目的研究目标是为在各种场景下受约束的控制网络系统设计分布式协调和重路由算法。该研究计划遵循以下主旨：(I)设计用于负载转移的基于聚合的健壮需求响应算法：虽然聚合可以帮助实现负载转移目标，但关键是要了解其关于噪声、时变交互和延迟的健壮性。(Ii)分布式负载重平衡和重路由算法的设计：异构性约束会对分布式算法的行为产生巨大影响，破坏自然的多智能体交互流程，导致拥塞。我们的目标是研究重新分配如何有助于缓解拥堵。(3)将需求-响应算法与分布式路由和平衡算法相结合。通过弥合高度Lyapunov函数光滑理论、集值映射理论和压缩分析之间的现有差距，将使用非线性稳定性工具来分析算法的稳健性。

As sensing and communication technologies become faster, smaller and cheaper, they become ever more integrated with common infrastructure and utilities in our world. Widely available to the public, the new technology can be leveraged to create more advanced systems where smart devices are linked with users and operators by real-time communication networks. Modern examples include traffic systems, the power grid, smart buildings, and automated factory environments. The coordination between users and operators can dramatically expand the efficiency of these networked infrastructure systems, while reducing problems of congestion and high demand. This award supports fundamental research to provide needed knowledge and techniques for the development of automatic control algorithms that can meet these goals with guaranteed performance. The coordination of multiple users and operators is very challenging as interactions occur only locally, user/operator needs can quickly change due to unpredicted events, the potential limitations of service over periods of high demand, and the unreliability of the smart device operation. This research will bridge existing theoretical tools and develop new ones that can be used to guide the design of novel robust algorithms. Therefore, results from this research will benefit the U.S. economy and society. This research involves several disciplines including control theory, distributed computation, optimization, and robotics. The multi-disciplinary approach will help broaden participation of underrepresented groups in research and positively impact engineering education.This project's research objectives are the design of distributed coordination and re-routing algorithms for the control networked systems subject to constraints in a wide variety of scenarios. The research plan is articulated along the following thrusts: (i) The design of aggregation-based robust demand-response algorithms for load shifting: While aggregation can help achieve load-shifting objectives, it is key to understand its robustness properties with respect to noise, time-varying interactions, and delays. (ii) The design of distributed load re-balancing and re-routing algorithms: Heterogeneous constraints can have a dramatic impact on distributed algorithm behavior, breaking the natural multi-agent interaction flow and leading to congestion. We aim to study how re-distribution can help alleviate congestion. (iii) The integration of demand-response algorithms with distributed routing and balancing algorithms. Nonlinear stability tools will be used to analyze the robustness of the algorithms by bridging existing gaps between the smooth theory of height Lyapunov functions, set-valued map theory, and contractive analysis.