Distributed Control of Uncertain Systems

多个系统中丰富的信息和计算资源可以通过民用和军用多个系统的协同工作来提高作战效能。与执行单独使命的单个系统相比，以协调方式操作的一组系统可以实现更高的效率和操作能力。多个系统的协同控制提出了重大的理论和实践挑战。首先，研究的目标是开发一个系统，其中包括多个子系统，而不是一个单一的系统。其次，团队的通信带宽和连接性通常是有限的，系统之间的交互可能是不可靠的。第三，每个系统的计算资源总是有限的。为了应对这些挑战，多系统分布式控制发挥了重要作用，是解决多系统协调控制的有效控制方法之一。多系统的分布式协调控制已经研究了几十年。早期的研究主要集中在多个线性系统的协调控制和具有特殊形式的多个非线性系统的协调控制。本计画主要研究多个异质不确定非线性系统之分散式协同控制。为此，提出了三个研究问题，即，多个不确定线性系统的分布式输出跟踪控制，多个非线性系统的分布式输出跟踪控制，以及多个不确定非线性系统的分布式输出跟踪控制。为了解决这些问题，我们将利用非线性控制理论和分布估计理论，提出两种系统的控制器设计方法。 为了验证所提出的研究成果的有效性，将进行实验研究，通过实施所提出的控制律在多机器人试验台在PI的研究实验室。第二部分由于每个系统的非线性特性和相邻系统信息的有限性，提出的研究问题具有挑战性。本计画将解决多个系统的分散式协同控制问题，其中对每个系统的动态特性及系统间的通讯有不同的假设。这一建议的知识价值是：1。针对所提出的控制问题，提出了两种新的分布式控制器设计方法; 2.分布式跟踪控制器将提出所提出的问题与所提出的方法的援助;和3。所提出的控制器设计方法可应用于许多实际控制问题的分布式协同控制问题，如移动的机器人群集、无人机编队控制等。2本项目所提出的研究在民用、国土安全和多系统协同工作的军事应用中具有重要意义。拟议的研究也对生物学，经济学，物理学和计算机科学领域产生了影响。研究计划将纳入教育计划，包括1）本科和研究生教育和2）更广泛地传播研究成果。德克萨斯大学格兰德河谷分校（UTRGV）是一所以西班牙裔为主的学院。PI将通过他的研究指导少数民族学生和女学生。PI将开发与本项目相关的研究生课程和本科课程。研究结果将发表在期刊和会议论文集上。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Part 1The abundance of information and computational resources in multiple systems enable enhanced operational effectiveness through cooperative teamwork of multiple systems in civilian and military applications. Compared to a single system that performs a solo mission, greater efficiency and operational capability can be realized by a team of systems which operate in a coordinated fashion. Cooperative control of multiple systems poses significant theoretical and practical challenges. First, the research objective is to develop a system which includes multiple subsystems rather than a single system. Second, the communication bandwidth and connectivity of the team are often limited and the interaction between systems may be unreliable. Third, computational resources of each individual system will always be limited. In order to deal with these challenges, distributed control of multiple systems plays an important role and is one of effective control methods in solving cooperative control of multiple systems. Distributed cooperative control of multiple systems has been studied for decades. Earlystudy focused on the cooperative control of multiple linear systems and cooperative control of multiple nonlinear systems with special forms. In this project, it is proposed to study distributed cooperative control of multiple heterogeneous nonlinear systems with uncertainty. To this end, three research problems are proposed, i.e., distributed output tracking control of multiple uncertain linear systems, distributed output tracking control of multiple nonlinear systems, and distributed output tracking control of multiple uncertain nonlinear systems. To solve the proposed problems, two systematic controller design approaches will be proposed with the aid of nonlinear control theory and distributed estimation theory. In order to verify the effectiveness of the proposed research results, experimental study will be conducted by implementing the proposed control laws in the multi-robot testbed in the PI's research laboratory. Based on the experimental results, the proposed distributed control laws will be improved accordingly.Part 2The proposed research problems are challenging due to the nonlinear nature of each system and the limited information of its neighbor systems. This project will solve the distributed cooperative control problem of multiple systems with different assumptions on the dynamics of each system and the communication among systems. The intellectual merits of this proposal are: 1. two novel distributed controller design approaches will be proposed for the proposed control problems; 2. Distributed tracking controllers will be proposed for the proposed problems with the aid of the proposed approaches; and 3. the proposed controller design procedures can be applied to the distributed cooperative control problems of many practical control problems, such as flocking of mobile robots, formation control of unmanned aerial vehicles, etc.The proposed research in this project has significant impact in civilian, homeland security, and military applications where multiple systems work cooperatively. The proposed research also has impact on the fields of biology, economics, physics, and computer science. The research plan will be integrated into an education plan including 1) undergraduate and graduate education and 2) broader dissemination of the research results. The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV) is a predominantly Hispanic institute. The PI will mentor minority students and female students through his research. The PI will develop a graduate course and an undergraduate course which are related to this project. The research results will be published in journals and conference proceedings. The PI will also work closely with his industrial partners to transfer research results.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.