Abstract
In this paper, we propose a cooperative control strategy for a group of robotic vehicles to achieve the specified task issued from a high-level astronaut command. The problem is mathematically formulated as designing the cooperative control for a general class of multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) dynamical systems in canonical form with arbitrary but finite relative degrees such that the outputs of the overall system converge to the explicitly given steady state. The proposed cooperative control for individual vehicle only need to use the sensed and communicated outputs information from its local neighboring vehicles. No fixed leader and time-invariant communication networks are assumed among vehicles. Particularly, a set of less-restrictive conditions on the connectivity of the sensor/communication networks are established, under which it is rigorously proven by using the newly found nice properties of the convergence of sequences of row stochastic matrices that the cooperative objective of the overall system can be achieved. Simulation results for a group of vehicles achieving a target and surrounding a specified object in formation are provided to support the proposed approach in this paper.
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Jing Wang received his B.S. degree and Ph.D. degree in control theory and control engineering, both from Central South University of Technology, China, in 1992 and 1997, respectively. He was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, from 1997 to 1999, and at the National University of Singapore, Singapore, from 1999 to 2002. Since March 2002, he has been with School of Electrical and Computer Science of University of Central Florida and now is a research assistant professor. He is the co-recipient of Best Theoretical Paper Award in 2002 at the 4th World Congress on Intelligent Control and Automation, Shanghai, China. His current research interests include cooperative control of multi-robot systems, nonlinear controls, robot control and motion planning, trajectory optimization, and control applications. He is a Member of IEEE and AIAA.
Zhihua Qu received his Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1990. Since then, he has been with the University of Central Florida. Currently, he is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. His main research interests are nonlinear systems, robust and adaptive control designs, and robotics. He has published a number of papers in these areas and is the author of two books, Robust Control of Nonlinear Uncertain Systems by Wiley Interscience and Robust Tracking Control of Robotic Manipulators by IEEE Press. He is presently serving as an Associate Editor for Automatica and for International Journal of Robotics and Automation. He is a senior member of IEEE.
Curtis M. Ihlefeld has been an electronics engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration at the Kennedy Space Center since 1989. He is currently a member of the Kennedy Space Center Applied Physics Lab and has performed embedded processor systems design and control systems design for numerous Kennedy Space Center laboratories including the NASA Analytical Chemistry Lab, Optical Instrumentation Lab, Transducers Lab, and Data Acquisition Lab. Current projects include a control system design for a Lunar chemistry experiment that searches for water on the moon’s surface, a control system design and image processing tool set for space shuttle engine compartment photography, and a control system and image processing tool set for a space shuttle window defect measurement system. Presently he is performing research in the control of electroactive polymers. He holds an MS degree in electrical engineering from the University of Central Florida, and the title of his thesis was Application of Lyapunov Based Sensor Fault Detection in a Reverse Water Gas Shift Generator. He has one published conference proceedings paper and one journal article in the area of nonlinear fault tolerant control.
Richard A. Hull received his B.S. in Engineering Science and Mechanics from the University of Florida, 1972, his M.S. and Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Central Florida in 1993 and 1996, respectively. He has served as a Guidance and Control System Engineer in the Aerospace Industry for over 30 years, working for Lockheed Martin, Coleman Aerospace, McDonnell Douglas, and Boeing companies. He is currently a Principal Engineer in the Advanced Concepts Business Unit of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). He was a former recipient of the U.S. Air Force Laboratory Graduate Fellowship in Guidance and Control, and formerly served as Vice-Chairman of the Lockheed Martin Corporate Technical Focus Group for Guidance, Navigation and Control. His expertise and experience includes synthesis, simulation and analysis of guidance and control systems for hypersonic interceptor missiles, exo-atmospheric space vehicles, supersonic turbo-jets, space launch vehicle rockets, and high performance fighter aircraft. He is also a principal investigator for research in nonlinear robust control design methods, cooperative control of multiple platforms, and genetic algorithm design methods for aerospace applications. He has authored or co-authored over twenty conference and journal articles in the fields of nonlinear or cooperative control. He is a member of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), a senior member of American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) and a member of the IEEE Control System Society. He has served as an Associate Editor of the Conference Editorial Board for the IEEE Control System Society since 1998, and is an adjunct professor and member of the graduate advisory council in Electrical Engineering for the Florida Institute of Technology (FIT).
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Wang, J., Qu, Z., Ihlefeld, C.M. et al. A control-design-based solution to robotic ecology: Autonomy of achieving cooperative behavior from a high-level astronaut command. Auton Robot 20, 97–112 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-006-5942-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10514-006-5942-5