Collaborative Research: New Communication Infrastructures For Networked Coordinated Control

本计画的重点是多车系统协调控制中通讯网路的整合设计与分析。考虑一组配备了本地控制器和无线电的车辆，它们被设置为自我调整、稳定并控制其集体运动。为了实现全局期望的编队行为，给定飞行器上的控制器必须对其他飞行器的运动和状态做出响应，实际上，系统的组成部分之间存在复杂的耦合：网络结构、通信协议和控制器设计。这些组件的集成设计是本项目的目标。 设计网络控制系统的基本挑战是通信和控制的任务，一般来说，不能被认为是相互解耦而不损失最优性。然而，模块化解决方案可以潜在地为有效解决方案的本质提供重要的见解。该项目通过将问题分解为模块化任务，从实际可行的角度解决了集成通信和控制的问题。引入的模块化程度，尽管它的次优，使实际和有效的解决方案，以及洞察到固有的权衡。由于出现的问题位于通信和控制研究之间的交叉点，该项目的组成部分通过以下具体任务汇集了分散控制，网络和信号处理方面的专业知识：1）动态图上的非线性协调控制，2）为协调控制服务的无线网络的跨层优化，3）分散式通信和控制的物理层解决方案，4）在华盛顿大学的三维自主水下机器人试验台上进行了性能评估。

The focus of this project is integrated design and analysis of communication networks in service of coordinated control of multi-vehicle systems. Consider a set of vehicles, equipped with local controllers and wireless radios, that is set to arrange itself, to stabilize, and to control its collective motion. To achieve globally desirable formation behavior, the controller on a given vehicle must respond to the motion and state of others.In fact, there exists a complicated coupling among system components: network architecture, communications protocols, and controller design. The integrated design of these components is the objective of this project. The fundamental challenge in designing networked control systems is that the tasks of communication and control, in general, cannot be considered decoupled from each other without loss of optimality. However, modular solutions can potentially provide significant insights into the nature of efficient solutions. This project addresses the problem of integrated communications and control from a practically viable perspective by decomposing the problem into modular tasks. The introduced degree of modularity, despite its sub-optimality, enables practical and efficient solutions as well as insights into the inherent trade-offs. Because the questions that arise lie at the intersection between communications and controls research, the components of the project bring together expertise in decentralized control, networking, and signal processing through the following specific tasks: 1) Nonlinear coordinated control over dynamic graphs, 2) Crosslayer optimization of wireless networks in service of coordinated control, 3) Physical layer solutions to decentralized communication and control, and 4) Experimental performance evaluation on a 3D autonomous underwater vehicle test-bed at the University of Washington.