CRII: RI: Distributed, Stable and Robust Topology Control: New Methods for Asymmetrically Interacting Multi-Robot Teams

CRII：RI：分布式、稳定和鲁棒的拓扑控制：非对称交互多机器人团队的新方法

基本信息

批准号：
1657235
负责人：
Ryan Williams
金额：
$ 17.43万
依托单位：
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Standard Grant
财政年份：
2017
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2017-04-01 至 2019-03-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1657235&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
CRII RI Distributed Stable Robust

项目摘要

Recent years have seen a rapid increase of autonomous robotics in critical segments of research and industry. However, autonomy in teams of robots remains somewhat in its infancy. This project therefore aims to eliminate three assumptions that currently limit the autonomous control of multi-robot teams: (1) that complete system information is available to all robots at all times; (2) that robot-to-robot interactions are symmetric among team members (i.e., I see you and you see me); and (3) that interactions among robots provide enough information to guarantee predictable and safe robot motion. This project will tackle such restrictions by developing new methods for explicitly controlling robot-to-robot interaction when the above assumptions are absent, with validation in field experiments using commercial off-the-shelf robotic and Internet of Things (IoT) sensor platforms. The project outcomes will find broad relevance in applications spanning intelligent transportation, precision agriculture, autonomous construction, and defense, while allowing for deeper experimentation outside of laboratories. Finally, the project includes a comprehensive outreach plan consisting of: (1) K-12 academic experiences for underrepresented students; (2) graduate curriculum; and (3) open-source contributions to the robotics community.Towards the above goals, this project will intersect novel techniques from control and graph theory to derive stability guarantees for a new class of asymmetric topology control laws. The theoretical approaches will enable guaranteed coordination for a large class of distributed multi-robot systems. Specifically, this project will focus on the following objectives of developing: (1) nonlinear motion controllers that guarantee stable multi-robot coordination for an identified class of asymmetric robot interactions; (2) distributed algorithms for determining stable transitions in asymmetric communication and sensing topologies; (3) extensions for hardware safe control inputs and robustness to external disturbance; and (4) field experiments with aerial and ground robots, and an IoT sensor network in a target tracking regime.

近年来，自主机器人技术在研究和工业的关键领域迅速增长。然而，机器人团队的自主性仍处于起步阶段。因此，该项目旨在消除目前限制多机器人团队自主控制的三个假设：（1）所有机器人在任何时候都可以获得完整的系统信息； (2) 机器人与机器人的交互在团队成员之间是对称的（即，我看到你，你看到我）； (3)机器人之间的交互提供足够的信息来保证机器人运动的可预测和安全。该项目将通过开发新方法来解决这些限制，当上述假设不存在时，显式控制机器人与机器人之间的交互，并使用商用现成机器人和物联网（IoT）传感器平台进行现场实验验证。该项目的成果将在智能交通、精准农业、自主建筑和国防等领域的应用中找到广泛的相关性，同时允许在实验室外进行更深入的实验。最后，该项目包括一项全面的外展计划，其中包括：(1) 为代表性不足的学生提供 K-12 学术经验；（二）研究生课程； (3) 对机器人社区的开源贡献。为了实现上述目标，该项目将交叉控制和图论的新技术，为一类新型非对称拓扑控制律导出稳定性保证。理论方法将为一大类分布式多机器人系统提供有保证的协调。具体来说，该项目将重点关注以下开发目标：（1）非线性运动控制器，保证特定类别的非对称机器人交互的稳定多机器人协调； (2) 用于确定非对称通信和传感拓扑中的稳定转换的分布式算法； (3)硬件安全控制输入的扩展和对外部干扰的鲁棒性； (4) 空中和地面机器人以及目标跟踪状态下的物联网传感器网络的现场实验。