Design of Robust Distributed Control Schemes with Applications to Multi-Agent Systems

本文研究了用结构约束控制器控制互联大系统的问题。在许多物理系统中，如传感器网络、电力系统、自动驾驶汽车的协调运动和交通网络，相互作用的子系统在地理上是分散的。通常，由于网络的分布式特性以及所需在线计算的复杂性，传统的集中式控制对这类系统的效率不高。此外，从子系统到控制器的连续数据传输（反之亦然）通常是昂贵的。这种结构的另一个明显缺点是产生的闭环系统具有单点故障。另一方面，在分布式控制结构中，人们可以通过只关注那些对相应子系统有相对高影响的输出（通过互连）来生成每个子系统的控制输入。这样既降低了计算复杂度，又提高了控制拓扑的效率。

The problem of controlling an interconnected large-scale system by means of structurally constrained controllers is considered in this proposal. In many physical systems such as sensor networks, power systems, coordinated motion of automated vehicles and traffic networks, the interacting subsystems are geographically dispersed. Usually, traditional centralized control for this type of system is not as efficient, due to the distributed nature of the network and also the complexity of the required on-line computations. Furthermore, continuous transmission of data from the subsystems to the controller and vice versa is typically expensive. Another obvious disadvantage of such structure is that the resultant closed-loop system has a single point of failure. In a distributed control structure, on the other hand, one can generate the control input of each subsystem by only concentrating on those outputs which have a relatively high impact on the corresponding subsystem (through interconnections). This reduces the complexity of the computations, and at the same time improves the efficiency of the control topology.