Distributed geometric coordination of autonomous vehicle networks moving in three dimensions

本课题是关于三维自主多智能体(车辆/机器人)系统在不同环境下的几何队形获取与维护的研究，具有实用价值。为了完成这些获取和维护任务，该计划旨在设计和分析广泛适用的一组(I)传感和控制体系结构，(Ii)高级分布式协调控制律，以及(Iii)低级实用控制器，每个控制器控制单个代理的动态。这些设计和分析的实际动机和应用领域包括合作的民用和国防监视任务，涉及无人驾驶飞行器、无人驾驶地面飞行器、自主水下航行器、航天器或机器人团队；移动无线传感器网络的协调；对分离的空间探索单位的获取和管理，例如分离的望远镜、天线和卫星。 考虑到(1)，将实现开发上述方案集(I)、(Ii)、(Iii)的方案目标 将二维编队控制的结果扩展到三维，(2)针对这种扩展不可行的情况开发特定的技术，以及(3)考虑到现实生活中的各种限制，将理想化的数学协调设计置于实际背景中。 作为一般性的科学贡献，本研究计划的成果自然有望填补AMS配位理论与实践之间以及AMS二维与三维几何配位理论与应用之间的空白。 在现实生活应用方面，这项工作在当前加拿大和全球感兴趣的几个战略领域都有应用，包括通过基于位置的信息系统对信息进行网络化管理、智能联网信号处理、对人类干预和气候变化对生态系统的影响的联网检测、对空气和水的废物和污染监测、对故意或意外干扰的弹性网络架构的开发以及联网监测。

This research program is on geometric formation acquisition and maintenance of autonomous multi-agent (vehicle/robot) systems (AMSs) in three dimensions under various circumstances of practical value. To achieve these acquisition and maintenance tasks, the program aims to design and analyze widely applicable sets of (i) sensing and control architectures, (ii) high level distributed coordination control laws, and (iii) low level practical controllers each of which controls the dynamics of an individual agent. The practical motivators and application areas of these designs and analysis include cooperative civilian and defense surveillance tasks involving teams of unmanned aerial vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, spacecraft or robots; coordination of mobile wireless sensor networks; acquisition and regulation of fractionated space exploration units, e.g. fractionated telescopes, antennas, and satellites. The program objective of developing the scheme sets (i),(ii),(iii) above will be achieved considering (1) extension of the results for two-dimensional formation control to three dimensions, (2) development of specific techniques for the cases where this extension is not doable, and (3) putting the idealistic mathematical coordination designs into practical context considering various real-life limitations. As general scientific contributions, outcomes of this research program are naturally expected to fill in the gaps between theory and practice of AMS coordination as well as those between two dimensional and three dimensional AMS geometric coordination theory and applications. In terms of real-life applications, the work has applications in several current strategic areas of Canadian and global interest, including networked management of information via location-based information systems, intelligent networked signal processing, networked detection of human intervention and climate change effects to the ecosystem, waste and contamination monitoring of air and water, development of resilient network architectures robust to deliberate or accidental interference, and networked surveillance.