In this paper, we present a distributed algorithm for cloud-supported effective coverage of 3D structures with a network of sensing agents. The structure to inspect is abstracted into a set of landmarks, where each landmark represents a point or small area of interest, and incorporates information about position and orientation. The agents navigate the environment following the proposed control algorithm until all landmarks have reached a satisfactory level of coverage. The agents do not communicate with each other directly, but exchange data through a shared cloud repository which is accessed asynchronously and intermittently. We show formally that, under the proposed control architecture, the networked agents complete the coverage mission in finite time. The results are corroborated by simulations in ROS, and experimental evaluation is in progress.

This paper addresses a formation problem for a network of autonomous agents with second-order dynamics and bounded disturbances. Coordination is achieved by having the agents asynchronously upload (download) data to (from) a shared repository, rather than directly exchanging data with other agents. Well-posedness of the closed-loop system is demonstrated by showing that there exists a lower bound for the time interval between two consecutive agent accesses to the repository. Numerical simulations corroborate the theoretical results.

In this paper, we propose a cloud-supported control framework for multi-agent circumnavigation missions. We consider a network of planar autonomous agents. Our objective is for the agents to circumnavigate a target with a desired angular speed, while forming a regular polygon around the target. We propose self-triggered rules to schedule the bearing measurements and the cloud accesses for each agent.

In control of multi-robot systems, the aim is to obtain a coordinated behavior through local interactions among the robots. A multi-agent system is an abstract model of a multi-robot system. In this thesis, we investigate multi-agent systems where inter-agent communication is modeled by discrete events triggered by conditions on the internal state of the agents. We consider two models of communication. In the first model, two agents exchange information directly with each other. In the second model, all information is exchanged asynchronously over a shared repository. Four contributions on control algorithms for multi-agent systems are offered in the thesis. The first contribution is an event-triggered pinning control algorithm for a network of agents with nonlinear dynamics and time-varying topology. Pinning control is a strategy to steer the behavior of the system in a desired manner by controlling only a small fraction of the agents. We express the controllability of the network in terms of an average value of the network connectivity over time, and we show that all the agents can be driven to a desired reference trajectory. The second contribution is a control algorithm for multi-agent systems where inter-agent communication is substituted with a shared remote repository hosted on a cloud. The communication between each agent and the cloud is modeled as a sequence of events scheduled recursively by the agent. We quantify the connectivity of the network and we show that it is possible to synchronize the multi-agent system to the same state trajectory, while guaranteeing that two consecutive cloud accesses by the same agent are separated by a lower-bounded time interval. The third contribution is a family of distributed controllers for coverage and surveillance tasks with a network of mobile agents with anisotropic sensing patterns. We develop an abstract model of the environment under inspection and define a measure of the coverage attained by the sensor network. We show that the network attains nondecreasing coverage, and we characterize the equilibrium configurations of the network. The fourth contribution is a distributed, cloud-supported control algorithm for inspection of 3D structures with a network of mobile sensing agents, similar to those considered in the third contribution. We develop an abstract model of the structure to inspect and quantify the degree of completion of the inspection. We demonstrate that, under the proposed algorithm, the network is guaranteed to complete the inspection in finite time. All results presented in the thesis are corroborated by numerical simulations and sometimes by experiments with aerial robotic platforms. The experiments show that the theory and methods developed in the thesis are of practical relevance.

I reglering av multi-robot system är syftet att uppnå ett samordnat beteende genom lokala interaktioner bland robotarna. Ett fleragentsystem är en abstrakt modell av ett multi-robot system. I denna avhandling undersöks fleragentsystem där kommunikationen mellan agenterna modelleras som tidsdiskreta händelser som utlöses av vilkor på agenternas inre tillstånd. Vi betraktar två kommunikationsmodeller. I den första modellen utbyter två agenter direkt information med varandra. I den andra modellen utbyts all information genom asynkron tillgång till ett gemensamt minne. Avhandlingens bidrag består av fyra delar. Det första bidraget är en händelsestyrd pinningregleringsalgoritm för ett nätverk av agenter med olinjär dynamik och tidsvarierande topologi. Pinningreglering är en strategi för att styra beteendet hos ett fleragentsystem på ett önskat sätt genom att endast styra en liten del av agenterna. Vi uttrycker styrbarheten hos nätverket i form av ett medelvärde av nätverkskonnektiviteten över tiden, och vi visar att alla agenter kan drivas till en önskad referenstrajektoria. Det andra bidraget är en regleringsalgoritm för fleragentsystem där kommunikationen mellan agenterna är ersatt av ett gemensamt minne som är installerat på ett moln. Kommunikationen mellan varje agent och molnet modelleras som en följd av händelser som planeras rekursivt av agenten. Vi kvantifierar nätverkets konnektivitet och vi visar att det är möjligt att synkronisera fleragentsystemet till samma tillståndstrajektoria och att två på varandra följande uppkopplingar till molnen av samma agent separeras av ett nedåt begränsat tidsintervall. Det tredje bidraget är en samling av distribuerade regulatorer för täcknings- och övervakningsuppgifter med ett nätverk av mobila sensorer med anisotropa sensormönster. Vi utvecklar en abstrakt modell av den inspekterade miljön och definierar ett mått på den täckning som uppnås av sensornätverket. Vi visar att nätverket uppnår gradvis förbättrad täckning, och vi karaktäriserar nätverkets jämviktskonfigurationer. Det fjärde bidraget är en distribuerad, molnbaserad regleringsalgoritm för inspektion av 3D-strukturer med ett nätverk av mobila sensorer, som liknar dem som betraktas i det tredje bidraget. Vi utvecklar en abstrakt modell av strukturen som ska inspekteras och kvantifierar omfattningen av inspektionen. Vi visar att nätverket enligt den föreslagna algoritmen är garanterat att slutföra inspektionen inom begränsad tid. Alla resultat som presenteras i avhandlingen bekräftas av numeriska simuleringar och ibland av experiment med flygrobotplattformar. Experimenten visar att teorin och metoderna som utvecklas i avhandlingen är av praktisk relevans.

The finite-time attitude synchronization problem is considered in this paper, where the rotation of each rigid body is expressed using the axis-angle representation. Two discontinuous and distributed controllers using the vectorized signum function are proposed, which guarantee almost global and local convergence, respectively. Filippov solutions and non-smooth analysis techniques are adopted to handle the discontinuities. Sufficient conditions are provided to guarantee finite-time convergence and boundedness of the solutions. Simulation examples are provided to verify the performances of the control protocols designed in this paper.

In this article, we propose a planning algorithm for coverage of complex structures with a network of robotic sensing agents, with multi-robot surveillance missions as our main motivating application. The sensors are deployed to monitor the external surface of a 3D structure. The algorithm controls the motion of each sensor so that a measure of the collective coverage attained by the network is nondecreasing, while the sensors converge to an equilibrium configuration. A modified version of the algorithm is also provided to introduce collision avoidance properties. The effectiveness of the algorithm is demonstrated in a simulation and validated experimentally by executing the planned paths on an aerial robot.

A cloud-supported multi-agent system is composed of autonomous agents required to achieve a common coordination objective by exchanging data over a shared cloud repository. The repository is accessed asychronously by different agents, and direct inter-agent commuication is not possible. This model is motivated by the problem of coordinating a fleet of autonomous underwater vehicles, with the aim to avoid the use of expensive and power-hungry modems for underwater communication. For the case of agents with integrator dynamics, a control law and a rule for scheduling the cloud access are formally defined and proven to achieve the desired coordination. A numerical simulation corroborate the theoretical results.

A finite-time attitude synchronization problem is considered in this paper where the rotation of each rigid body is expressed using the axis-angle representation. One simple discontinuous and distributed controller using the vectorized signum function is proposed. This controller only involves the sign of the state differences of adjacent neighbors. In order to avoid the singularity introduced by the axis-angular representation, an extra constraint is added to the initial condition. It is proved that for some initial conditions, the control law achieves finite-time attitude synchronization. One simulated example is provided to verify the usage of the control protocol designed in this paper.

In this paper, we present an algorithm for pose control of a team of mobile sensors for coverage and inspection applications. The region to cover is abstracted into a finite set of landmarks, and each sensor is responsible to cover some of the landmarks. The sensors progressively improve their coverage by adjusting their poses and by transferring the ownership of some landmarks to each other. Inter-sensor communication is pairwise and intermittent. The sensor team is formally modeled as a multi-agent hybrid system, and an invariance argument formally shows that the team reaches an equilibrium configuration, while a global coverage measure is improving monotonically. A numerical simulation corroborates the theoretical results.

In this paper, we study a problem of target tracking and circumnavigation with a network of autonomous agents. We propose a distributed algorithm to estimate the position of the target and drive the agents to rotate around it while forming a regular polygon and keeping a desired distance. We formally show that the algorithm attains exponential convergence of the agents to the desired polygon if the target is stationary, and bounded convergence if the target is moving with bounded speed. Numerical simulations corroborate the theoretical results and demonstrate the resilience of the network to addition and removal of agents.