Distributed Control of Uncertain Systems

在民用和军事应用中，多系统中丰富的信息和计算资源能够通过多系统的协同工作提高作战效率。与执行单独任务的单个系统相比，以协调方式运行的系统团队可以实现更高的效率和作战能力。多系统的协同控制提出了重大的理论和实践挑战。首先，研究目标是开发一个包含多个子系统而不是单个系统的系统。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，每个单独系统的计算资源总是有限的。为了应对这些挑战，多系统分布式控制是解决多系统协同控制的有效控制方法之一。多系统的分布式协同控制已经研究了几十年。早期的研究主要集中在多线性系统的协同控制和多特殊形式非线性系统的协同控制。本课题主要研究具有不确定性的多异构非线性系统的分布式协同控制问题。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和多个不确定非线性系统的分布式输出跟踪控制。为了解决上述问题，本文提出了两种基于非线性控制理论和分布估计理论的系统控制器设计方法。为了验证所提研究结果的有效性，将在PI研究实验室的多机器人试验台上实施所提控制律进行实验研究。在实验结果的基础上，对所提出的分布式控制律进行相应的改进。由于每个系统的非线性性质及其相邻系统的有限信息，所提出的研究问题具有挑战性。本课题将解决多系统的分布式协同控制问题，该问题对各系统的动力学和系统间的通信有不同的假设。这一建议的理论价值是：1。针对所提出的控制问题，将提出两种新的分布式控制器设计方法；2. 利用所提出的方法，对所提出的问题提出分布式跟踪控制器；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，如移动机器人的群集、无人机的编队控制等。本项目所提出的研究在多系统协同工作的民用、国土安全以及军事应用中具有重要意义。拟议的研究对生物学、经济学、物理学和计算机科学领域也有影响。该研究计划将被整合到教育计划中，包括1)本科和研究生教育，2)更广泛地传播研究成果。德克萨斯大学格兰德谷分校（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将开发一门与此项目相关的研究生课程和一门本科课程。研究结果将发表在期刊和会议论文集上。PI还将与他的工业伙伴密切合作，以转移研究成果。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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.