The surveillance problem is to find optimal trajectories of agents that patrol a given area as evenly as possible. In this paper, we consider multiple agents with fuel constraints. The surveillance area is given by a weighted directed graph, where the weight assigned to each arc corresponds to the fuel consumption/supply. For each node, the penalty to evaluate the unattended time is introduced. Penalties, agents, and fuels are modeled by a mixed logical dynamical system model. Then, the surveillance problem is reduced to a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. Based on the policy of model predictive control, the MILP problem is solved at each discrete time. In this paper, the feasibility condition for the MILP problem is derived. Finally, the proposed method is demonstrated by a numerical example.

Event-triggered control is a method that the control input is updated only when a certain triggering condition is satisfied. In networked control systems, quantization errors via A/D conversion should be considered. In this paper, a new method for quantized event-triggered control with switching triggering conditions is proposed. For a discrete-time linear system, we consider the problem of finding a state-feedback controller such that the closed-loop system is uniformly ultimately bounded in a certain ellipsoid. This problem is reduced to an LMI (Linear Matrix Inequality) optimization problem. The volume of the ellipsoid may be adjusted. The effectiveness of the proposed method is presented by a numerical example.

In this paper, event-triggered control over a sensor network is studied as one of the control methods of cyber-physical systems. Event-triggered control is a method that communications occur only when the measured value is widely changed. In the proposed method, by solving an LMI (Linear Matrix Inequality) feasibility problem, an event-triggered output feedback controller such that the closed-loop system is asymptotically stable is derived. First, the problem formulation is given. Next, the control problem is reduced to an LMI feasibility problem. Finally, the proposed method is demonstrated by a numerical example.

This paper proposes a distributed observer on a sensor network, where communication on the network is randomly performed. This work is a natural extension of Kalman consensus filter approach to the cases involving random communication. In both bidirectional and unidirectional communication cases, gain conditions that guarantee improvement of estimation error convergence compared to the case with no communication are obtained. The obtained conditions are more practical than those of previous studies and give appropriate cooperative gains for a given communication probability. The effectiveness of the proposed method is confirmed by computer simulations.

Pinning control of multi-agent systems is a method that the external control input is added to some agents (pinning nodes), e.g., leaders. By the external control input, consensus to a certain target value and faster consensus are achieved. In this paper, we propose a new method of self-triggered predictive pinning control for the consensus problem. Self-triggered control is a method that both the control input and the next update time are calculated. Using self-triggered control, it is expected that the communication cost can be reduced. First, a new finite-time optimal control problem used in self-triggered control is formulated, and its solution method is derived. Next, as an on-line algorithm, two methods, i.e., the multi-hop communication-based method and the observer-based method are proposed. Finally, numerical examples are presented.

A blockchain, which is well known as one of the distributed ledgers, has attracted in many research fields. In this paper, we discuss the effectiveness and limitation of a blockchain in distributed optimization. In distributed optimization, the original problem is decomposed, and the local problems are solved by multiple agents. In this paper, ADMM (Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers) is utilized as one of the powerful methods in distributed optimization. In ADMM, an aggregator is basically required for collecting the computation result in each agent. Using blockchains, the function of an aggregator can be contained in a distributed ledger, and an aggregator may not be required. As a result, tampering from attackers can be prevented. As an application, we consider energy management systems (EMSs). By numerical experiments, the effectiveness and limitation of blockchain-based distributed optimization are clarified.

Event-triggered control is a method that the control input is updated only when a certain condition is satisfied (i.e., an event occurs). In this paper, event-triggered control over a sensor network is studied based on the notion of uniformly ultimate boundedness. Since sensors are located in a distributed way, we consider multiple event-triggering conditions. In uniformly ultimate boundedness, it is guaranteed that if the state reaches a certain set containing the origin, the state stays within this set. Using this notion, the occurrence of events in the neighborhood of the origin is inhibited. First, the simultaneous design problem of a controller and event-triggering conditions is formulated. Next, this problem is reduced to an LMI (linear matrix inequality) optimization problem. Finally, the proposed method is demonstrated by a numerical example.

In this paper, a new method of model predictive control (MPC) for a multi-hop control network (MHCN) is proposed. An MHCN is a control system in which plants and controllers are connected through a multi-hop wireless network. In the proposed method, (i) control inputs and (ii) paths used in transmission of control inputs are computed with constant period by solving the finite-time optimal control problem. First, a mathematical model for expressing an MHCN is proposed. This model is given by a switched linear system, and is compatible with MPC. Next, the finite-time optimal control problem using this model is formulated, and is reduced to a mixed integer quadratic programming problem. Finally, a numerical example is presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

This paper proposes a distributed delay-compensated observer for a wireless sensor network with delay. Each node of the sensor network aggregates data from the other nodes and sends the aggregated data to the neighbor nodes. In this communication, each node also compensates communication delays among the neighbor nodes. Therefore, all of the nodes can synchronize their sensor measurements using scalable and local communication in real-time. All of the nodes estimate the state variables of a system simultaneously. The observer in each node is similar to the delay-compensated observer with multi-sensor delays proposed by Watanabe et al. Convergence rates for the proposed observer can be arbitrarily designed regardless of the communication delays. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by a numerical simulation.

This paper addresses distributed optimal estimation over wireless sensor networks with scalable communications. For realizing scalable communication, a data-aggregation method is introduced. Since our previously proposed method cannot guarantee the global optimality of each estimator, a modified protocol is proposed. A modification of the proposed method is that weights are introduced in the data aggregation. For selecting the weight values in the data aggregation, a redundant output reduction method with minimum covariance is discussed. Based on the proposed protocol, all estimators can calculate the optimal estimate. Finally, numerical simulations show that the proposed method can realize both the scalability of communication and high accuracy estimation.

Design of distributed energy management systems composed of several agents such as factories and buildings is important for realizing smart cities. In addition, demand response for saving the power consumption is also important. In this paper, we propose a design method of distributed energy management systems with real-time demand response, in which both electrical energy and thermal energy are considered. Here, we use ADMM (Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers), which is well known as one of the powerful methods in distributed optimization. In the proposed method, demand response is performed in real-time, based on the difference between the planned demand and the actual value. Furthermore, utilizing a blockchain is also discussed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is presented by a numerical example. The importance of introducing a blockchain is pointed out by presenting the adverse effect of tampering the actual value.

In this paper, we propose a new asymptotically stabilizing control law for a four-wheeled vehicle with a steering limitation. We adopt a locally semiconcave control Lyapunov function (LS-CLF) for the system. To overcome the nonconvexity of the input-constraint set, we utilize a saturation function and a signum function in the control law. The signum function makes the vehicle velocity nonzero except at the origin so that the angular velocity can be manipulated within the input constraint. However, the signum function may cause a chattering phenomenon at certain points of the state far from the origin. Thus, we integrate a lazy-switching mechanism for the vehicle velocity into the control law. The mechanism makes a sign of the vehicle velocity maintain, and the new control input also decreases the value of the LS-CLF. We confirm the effectiveness of our method by a computer simulation and experiments.

Event-triggered control is a control method that the measured signal is sent to the controller only when a certain triggering condition on the measured signal is satisfied. In this paper, we propose a linear quadratic regulator (LQR) with decentralized triggering conditions. First, a suboptimal solution to the design problem of LQRs with decentralized triggering conditions is derived. A state-feedback gain can be obtained by solving a convex optimization problem with LMI (linear matrix inequality) constraints. Next, the relation between centralized and decentralized triggering conditions is discussed. It is shown that control performance of an LQR with decentralized event-triggering is better than that with centralized event-triggering. Finally, a numerical example is illustrated.

In this paper, we consider the design problem of an unknown-input observer for distributed network systems under the existence of communication delays. In the proposed method, each node estimates all states and calculates inputs from its own estimate. It is assumed that the controller of each node is given by an observer-based controller. When calculating each node, the input values of the other nodes cannot be utilized. Therefore, each node calculates alternative inputs instead of the unknown inputs of the other nodes. The alternative inputs are generated by own estimate based on the feedback controller of the other nodes given by the assumption. Each node utilizes these values instead of the unknown inputs when calculating the estimation and delay compensation. The stability of the estimation error of the proposed observer is proven by a Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional. The stability condition is given by a linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, the result of a numerical simulation is shown to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.

In this paper, a surveillance system by multiple agents, which is called a multi-agent surveillance system, is studied. A surveillance area is given by an undirected connected graph. Then, the optimal control problem for multi-agent surveillance systems (the optimal surveillance problem) is to find trajectories of multiple agents that travel each node as evenly as possible. In our previous work, this problem is reduced to a mixed integer linear programming problem. However, the computation time for solving it exponentially grows with the number of agents. To overcome this technical issue, a new model predictive control method for multi-agent surveillance systems is proposed. First, a procedure of individual optimization, which is a kind of approximate solution methods, is proposed. Next, a method to improve the control performance is proposed. In addition, an event-triggering condition is also proposed. The effectiveness of the proposed method is presented by a numerical example.

A Boolean network (BN) is well known as a discrete model for analysis and control of complex networks such as gene regulatory networks. Since complex networks are large-scale in general, it is important to consider model reduction. In this paper, we consider model reduction that the information on fixed points (singleton attractors) is preserved. In model reduction studied here, the interaction graph obtained from a given BN is utilized. In the existing method, the minimum feedback vertex set (FVS) of the interaction graph is focused on. The dimension of the state is reduced to the number of elements of the minimum FVS. In the proposed method, we focus on complement and absorption laws of Boolean functions in substitution operations of a Boolean function into other one. By simplifying Boolean functions, the dimension of the state may be further reduced. Through a numerical example, we present that by the proposed method, the dimension of the state can be reduced for BNs that the dimension of the state cannot be reduced by the existing method.

In a power network, it is important to detect a cyber attack. In this paper, we propose a method for detecting false data injection (FDI) attacks in distributed state estimation. An FDI attack is well known as one of the typical cyber attacks in a power network. As a method of FDI attack detection, we consider calculating the residual (i.e., the difference between the observed and estimated values). In the proposed detection method, the tentative residual (estimated error) in ADMM (Alternating Direction Method of Multipliers), which is one of the powerful methods in distributed optimization, is applied. First, the effect of an FDI attack is analyzed. Next, based on the analysis result, a detection parameter is introduced based on the residual. A detection method using this parameter is then proposed. Finally, the proposed method is demonstrated through a numerical example on the IEEE 14-bus system.

The multi-agent surveillance problem is to find optimal trajectories of multiple agents that patrol a given area as evenly as possible. In this paper, we consider the multi-agent surveillance problem based on travel cost minimization. The surveillance area is given by an undirected graph. The penalty for each agent is introduced to evaluate the surveillance performance. Through a mixed logical dynamical system model, the multi-agent surveillance problem is reduced to a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem. In model predictive control, trajectories of agents are generated by solving the MILP problem at each discrete time. Furthermore, a condition that the MILP problem is always feasible is derived based on the Chinese postman problem. Finally, the proposed method is demonstrated by a numerical example.

In a multi-agent system, it is important to consider a design method of cooperative actions in order to achieve a common goal. In this paper, we propose two novel multi-agent reinforcement learning methods, where the control specification is described by linear temporal logic formulas, which represent a common goal. First, we propose a simple solution method, which is directly extended from the single-agent case. In this method, there are some technical issues caused by the increase in the number of agents. Next, to overcome these technical issues, we propose a new method in which an aggregator is introduced. Finally, these two methods are compared by numerical simulations, with a surveillance problem as an example.

This study proposes a maximum-likelihood-estimation method for a quadrotor UAV given the existence of sensor delays. The state equation of the UAV is nonlinear, and thus, we propose an approximated method that consists of two steps. The first step estimates the past state based on the delayed output through an extended Kalman filter. The second step involves calculating an estimate of the present state by simulating the original system from the past to the present. It is proven that the proposed method provides an approximated maximum-likelihood-estimation. The effectiveness of the estimator is verified by performing experiments.