|
|
 |
|
NIA Seminar by Leslie Weitz |
|
Date: March 15, 2006
Time: 10:30am
Location: NIA, Rm 137
A New Perspective on Cooperative Control
Leslie Weitz, Texas A&M University
Cooperative control is an emerging area of research that applies decentralized control schemes to large numbers of separate vehicles. More traditional centralized control concepts have one overall computational agent, which calculates the required control for each vehicle. In a decentralized-control regime, individual vehicles share state information with their nearest neighbors and then autonomously determine control inputs to achieve the desired goal of the group. These control concepts are superior to more traditional centralized control in terms of reliability with respect to structural reconfigurations and communication failures.
Past cooperative control research is often presented in a “theorem/proof/lemma” form, which makes the control schemes difficult to implement and understand. This research aims to develop cooperative control laws from an engineering viewpoint that may lead toward more widespread implementation of decentralized schemes.
The presentation will apply decentralized-control concepts to a formation-flying problem for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Three control laws that achieve a desired, stable vehicle formation will be presented, and the motivation behind the control design will be discussed. Each vehicle control law requires different information from their lead vehicles in the formation, and the performance of these control laws is compared and contrasted. Of particular interest is a controller designed that is “rate-free”, which eliminates vehicle velocity information in the control law.
|
|
|
Home