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Suboptimal Relational Tree Configuration and Robust Control Based on the Leader-follower Model for Self-organizing Systems Without GPS Support

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  • Intelligent Control and Applications
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Abstract

This paper surveys the formation acquisition and maintenance of multi-agent systems, while the communication graph is obtained without human designations. Given that all agents move along unpredictable paths during formation acquisition, the systems adopt the leader-follower model. For better expression of the graph construction, a relational tree is introduced to describe the follower-leader pairs. Then, a distributed method is proposed for suboptimal relational tree configuration. By utilizing particle swarm optimization (PSO), the search for follower-leader pairs is converted to permutation optimization. Based on principal component analysis (PCA), the entire group is divided into several small groups, and the optimization can be implemented in each group, thus releasing the computation burden. To acquire the formation defined by the suboptimal relational tree, a second nonlinear controller subject to the loss of GPS information is established. The controller takes the reference in the local velocity frame as inputs, and proportional and differential components are introduced to provide a soft control. In addition, adaptive parameters are designed for robust control. By tuning the parameters autonomously, self-organized systems can work well in various scenarios even without manual adjustment of parameters. Mathematical and numerical analyses are conducted to prove the feasibility of the proposed strategy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of College of Weapon Engineering, Naval University of Engineering, 717 Jiefang Dadao, Qiaokou District, Wuhan, Hubei, China

    Zhi-gang Xiong, Ya-Song Luo, Zhong Liu & Zhi-kun Liu

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  1. Zhi-gang Xiong
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  2. Ya-Song Luo
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  3. Zhong Liu
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  4. Zhi-kun Liu
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Correspondence to Ya-Song Luo.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China Grant 51679247.

Zhi-gang Xiong received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in control science and engineering from Air Force Engineering University, Shanxi, in 2014 and 2016, respectively. He is currently a doctoral student at Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, Hubei, China. His research interests include optimal control of multi-agent systems, multi-robot formation, and machine vision.

Ya-Song Luo received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in control science and engineering from Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, in 2006 and 2008, respectively. He received a Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from Naval University of Engineering, in 2010. He is currently an associate professor at Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, Hubei, China. His research interests include optimal control of multi-agent systems, multi-robot formation, and machine vision.

Zhong Liu received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in systems engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, in 1985 and 1989, respectively. He received a Ph.D. degree in control science and engineering from Huazhong University of Science and Technology, in 1998. He is currently a professor at Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, Hubei, China. His research interests include systems engineering, complex system modeling and simulation, and optimal control of multi-agent systems.

Zhi-kun Liu received his B.E. and M.E. degrees in information fusion from Naval Aeronautical University, Yantai, in 2007 and 2009, respectively. He received a Ph.D. degree in systems engineering from Naval University of Engineering, in 2012. He is currently an associate professor at Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan, Hubei, China. His research interests include multi-sensor information fusion and application of unmanned platform.

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Xiong, Zg., Luo, YS., Liu, Z. et al. Suboptimal Relational Tree Configuration and Robust Control Based on the Leader-follower Model for Self-organizing Systems Without GPS Support. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 22, 1442–1454 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-022-0505-x

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