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Bottom-up hybrid control and planning synthesis with application to multi-robot multi-human coordination

Project description

A decentralised control and planning approach for complex systems

Traditional control methods often fail to address complex systems with multiple interconnected parts. The struggle to address conflicting specifications in real time and coupled constraints between states can be overwhelming. The ERC-funded BUCOPHSYS project proposes a ground-breaking solution that unifies decentralised control and planning approaches, revolutionising the fields of control and computer science. Specifically, it proposes a decentralised, bottom-up approach that involves three layers of interaction. In the first layer, agents coordinate to fulfil their coupled constraints with limited communication and appropriate feedback controllers. In the second layer, agents coordinate to mutually satisfy their discrete tasks through exchange of corresponding plans in the form of automata. The third layer of communication exchange includes both continuous state and discrete plan/abstraction information.

Objective

Current control applications necessitate the treatment of systems with multiple interconnected components, rather than the traditional single component paradigm that has been studied extensively. The individual subsystems may need to fulfil different and possibly conflicting specifications in a real-time manner. At the same time, they may need to fulfill coupled constraints that are defined as relations between their states. Towards this end, the need for methods for decentralized control at the continuous level and planning at the task level becomes apparent. We aim here towards unification of these two complementary approaches. Existing solutions rely on a top down centralized approach. We instead consider here a decentralized, bottom-up solution to the problem. The approach relies on three layers of interaction. In the first layer, agents aim at coordinating in order to fulfil their coupled constraints with limited communication exchange of their state information and design of appropriate feedback controllers; in the second layer, agents coordinate in order to mutually satisfy their discrete tasks through exchange of the corresponding plans in the form of automata; in the third and most challenging layer, the communication exchange for coordination now includes both continuous state and discrete plan/abstraction information. The results will be demonstrated in a scenario involving multiple (possibly human) users and multiple robots.
The unification will yield a completely decentralized system, in which the bottom up approach to define tasks, the consideration of coupled constraints and their combination towards distributed hybrid control and planning in a coordinated fashion require for
new ways of thinking and approaches to analysis and constitute the proposal a beyond the SoA and groundbreaking approach to the fields of control and computer science.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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ERC-STG - Starting Grant

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2014-STG

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Host institution

KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 498 729,00
Address
BRINELLVAGEN 8
100 44 Stockholm
Sweden

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Region
Östra Sverige Stockholm Stockholms län
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 498 729,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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