Distributed Coordination Control of Mobile Multi-agent Systems

This proposal aims to study distributed coordination control of mobile multi-agent systems over a complex communication network, targeting efficient methodologies and some engineering applications in such areas as communication-networked multi-vehicles (e.g., unmanned aerial, ground and underwater vehicles). This research direction has been very active in the systems engineering and control communities, however still with many important theoretical and technical problems outstanding for further studies today. Recent research in this filed can be categorized into several related directions including consensus, formation, estimation and control. The PI has been devoting great efforts to the basic research on these important subjects in the past decade, and is making a continued endeavor towards several important topics along the same line in this proposal. Specifically, this project will focus on three advanced topics, namely: (i) consensus of sampled-data network configurations subject to data quantization, (ii) distributed formation of flocking mobile systems, and (iii) distributed estimation and control of multi-agent dynamical systems. The approach to be taken and the techniques to be used are based on mathematical algebraic graph theory, automatic control theory, dynamical systems theory and distributed algorithms design methodologies, which are within the PI’s expertise. The completion of the proposed project is deemed to have significant contributions to the filed with deeper and better understanding of the fundamental theory of multi-agent dynamical systems and, in particular, to provide some more effective automatic group control techniques and distributed algorithms towards engineering applications.