EAGER: Control Theory for Real-time Privacy-preserving Consensus Control of Engineering Networks

这个早期概念探索性研究补助金(AGER)项目考虑了如何在工程网络隐私保护的背景下修改已被广泛理解的控制体系结构，以产生新的共识控制策略。通信和计算能力越来越多地被整合到甚至最常见的物品中，形成了一个能够独立和合作行动的互联设备网络。这些连接的对象可以协调它们的行动，以提高智能电网和自动交通控制系统等系统的效率和性能。然而，数据的广泛共享也有泄露私人信息的风险。例如，网络运营商和调度单位之间交换非常详细的用户使用配置文件，可以优化智能电网中的电力预测、发电和分配，但也允许其他人推断家庭居住者的存在、缺席甚至特定活动的知识。经典加密速度太慢，无法部署在自动驾驶汽车等时间关键型工程应用中，在这些应用中，经过精心调整的控制器每秒生成数十或数百条命令。在这个项目中开发的洞察力是，交换的信息，甚至控制命令，可能会被现有控制体系结构的创新应用所掩盖。该项目将论证这一方法的可行性，并概述其主要特点。该项目的成果将在不违反保密性的情况下，通过提供沟通和协调的经济优势来促进国家繁荣。研究结果将被整合到研究生课程和由首席研究员监督的本科生研究项目中。该项目将探索分散协调算法在随机时变耦合权重下的稳定性，这将被用于模糊信息。随着无线通信和网络技术的发展，分散协调算法在网络机器人、传感器网络和智能交通系统中得到了广泛的应用。虽然其固有的灵活性和可扩展性使得分散协调算法在大规模系统中很受欢迎，但它们也给隐私保护设计带来了巨大的挑战。这是因为传统的隐私保护机制依赖于中央数据聚合器或可信第三方的协助--分散实施中排除了这些机制。这个项目建立在调查者的最新结果基础上，特别是一种隐私保护机制，该机制通过不确定的时变控制来模糊信息。该方法不需要任何第三方的帮助，在灵活性、可扩展性、准确性和计算开销等方面都优于现有的方法。然而，这种隐私保护方法导致了随机时变的耦合权重，其对分散协调的影响尚不清楚。本项目将通过严格分析随机时变耦合权重下分散协调的收敛条件和速度来解决这一问题。该项目的主要任务是首先刻画耦合权重时变并在一定区间内随机选择时可实现非线性共识的条件，其次分析随机时变耦合权重下分散协调的收敛速度，最后使用多机器人试验台系统验证所获得的结果。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This EArly-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) project considers how well-understood control architectures can be modified to produce novel consensus control strategies in the context of privacy protection for engineering networks. Communication and computing capabilities are increasingly being integrated into even the most commonplace items, forming an interconnected network of devices capable of independent and cooperative action. These connected objects can coordinate their actions to improve the efficiency and performance of systems such as smart power grids and automated traffic control systems. However, the widespread sharing of data also risks divulging private information. For example, the exchange of very detailed consumer usage profiles between network operators and dispatch units enables optimized power forecast, generation, and distribution in a smart grid, but also allows others to infer knowledge about the presence, absence, or even the specific activities of a home's occupants. Classical encryption is too slow to be deployed in time-critical engineering applications such as self-driving cars, where carefully tuned controllers generate tens or hundreds of commands per second. The insight developed in this project is that exchanged information, and even control commands, can be obscured by the innovative application of existing control architectures. This project will demonstrate the feasibility of this approach and outline its major features. The results of this project will advance national prosperity by offering the economic advantages of communication and coordination, without violating confidentiality. The research results will be integrated into the graduate curriculum, and into undergraduate research projects supervised by the Principal Investigator.This project will explore the stabilization of decentralized coordination algorithms under random time-varying coupling weights which will be used for obscuring information. With recent advances in wireless communications and networking, decentralized coordination algorithms have become widespread in networked robots, sensor networks, and intelligent transportation systems. Although their inherent flexibility and scalability make decentralized coordination algorithms appealing for large-scale systems, they also pose significant challenges to privacy protection design. This is because conventional privacy-preserving mechanisms rely on the assistance of a central data aggregator or a trusted third party -- mechanisms that are ruled out in a decentralized implementation. This project builds upon recent results by the Investigator, specifically a privacy-preserving mechanism which obscures information through uncertain time-varying controls. The approach does not need the assistance of any third party and is superior to existing approaches in terms of flexibility, scalability, accuracy, and computation overhead. However, this privacy-preserving approach leads to random time-varying coupling weights, whose influence on decentralized coordination is unclear. This project will address this problem through rigorous analysis of the convergence conditions and speed of decentralized coordination under random time-varying coupling weights. The main thrusts of the project are first to characterize the condition under which nonlinear consensus can be achieved when coupling weights are time-varying and randomly chosen from a certain interval, next to analyze the convergence speed of decentralized coordination under random time-varying coupling weights, and finally to systematically verify obtained results using a multi-robot test bed.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.