<p dir="ltr">Safety and explainability are a top priority across many real-world applications of control in safety-critical systems. Networked dynamic systems are one sub-class of models that encompass many of the safety-critical systems in need of such safety guarantees. In this dissertation, we present our work in the safety-critical control of general non-networked epidemic processes, as well as our work on the modeling and analysis of networked epidemic-spreading processes. We then present a framework for the safety-critical control of networked dynamic systems including individual node vulnerability analysis and a CBF-based collaborative-safety condition. We develop a collaborative-safety framework that leverages high-order barrier functions to encode the effect of neighbors on individual safety requirements and demonstrate how this framework can be used in both epidemic models and in formation control problems. We provide an analysis on the finite-time convergence rate of our collaborative-safety algorithm in the special case of a tree structure network for a formation control application. Finally, we provide some concluding remarks and discussion on important directions for future work in the field of collaborative control for multi-agent autonomous systems.</p>

The scope of the thesis is to estimate the parameters of continuous-time models used within control and communication from sampled data with high accuracy and in a computationally efficient way.In the thesis, continuous-time models of systems controlled in a networked environment, errors-in-variables systems, stochastic closed-loop systems, and wireless channels are considered. The parameters of a transfer function based model for the process in a networked control system are estimated by a covariance function based approach relying upon the second order statistical properties of input and output signals. Some other approaches for estimating the parameters of continuous-time models for processes in networked environments are also considered. The multiple input multiple output errors-in-variables problem is solved by means of a covariance matching algorithm. An analysis of a covariance matching method for single input single output errors-in-variables system identification is also presented. The parameters of continuous-time autoregressive exogenous models are estimated from closed-loop filtered data, where the controllers in the closed-loop are of proportional and proportional integral type, and where the closed-loop also contains a time-delay. A stochastic differential equation is derived for Jakes's wireless channel model, describing the dynamics of a scattered electric field with the moving receiver incorporating a Doppler shift. / <p>The thesis consists of five main parts, where the first part is an introduction- Parts II-IV are based on the following articles:</p><p><strong>Part II</strong> - Networked Control Systems</p><p>1. Y. Irshad, M. Mossberg and T. Söderström. <em>System identification in a networkedenvironment using second order statistical properties</em>.</p><p>A versionwithout all appendices is published as Y. Irshad, M. Mossberg and T. Söderström. <em>System identification in a networked environment using second order statistical properties</em>. Automatica, 49(2), pages 652–659, 2013.</p><p>Some preliminary results are also published as M. Mossberg, Y. Irshad and T. Söderström. <em>A covariance function based approachto networked system identification.</em> In Proc. 2nd IFAC Workshop on Distributed Estimation and Control in Networked Systems, pages 127–132, Annecy,France, September 13–14, 2010</p><p>2. Y. Irshad and M. Mossberg. <em>Some parameters estimation methods applied tonetworked control systems</em>.A journal submission is made. Some preliminary results are published as Y. Irshad and M. Mossberg.<em> A comparison of estimation concepts applied to networked control systems</em>. In Proc. 19th Int. Conf. on Systems, Signals andImage Processing, pages 120–123, Vienna, Austria, April 11–13, 2012.</p><p><strong>Part III</strong> - Errors-in-variables Identification</p><p>3. Y. Irshad and M. Mossberg. <em>Continuous-time covariance matching for MIMOEIV system identification</em>. A journal submission is made.</p><p>4. T. Söderström, Y. Irshad, M. Mossberg and W. X. Zheng. <em>On the accuracy of acovariance matching method for continuous-time EIV identification. </em>Provisionally accepted for publication in Automatica.</p><p>Some preliminary results are published as T. Söderström, Y. Irshad, M. Mossberg, and W. X. Zheng. <em>Accuracy analysis of a covariance matching method for continuous-time errors-in-variables system identification</em>. In Proc. 16th IFAC Symp. System Identification, pages 1383–1388, Brussels, Belgium, July 11–13, 2012.</p><p><strong>Part IV</strong> - Wireless Channel Modeling</p><p>5. Y. Irshad and M. Mossberg.<em> Wireless channel modeling based on stochasticdifferential equations .</em>Some results are published as M. Mossberg and Y. Irshad.<em> A stochastic differential equation forwireless channelsbased on Jakes’s model with time-varying phases,</em> In Proc. 13th IEEEDigitalSignal Processing Workshop, pages 602–605, Marco Island, FL, January4–7, 2009.</p><p><strong>Part V</strong> - Closed-loop Identification</p><p>6. Y. Irshad and M. Mossberg. Closed-loop identification of P- and PI-controlledtime-delayed stochastic systems.Some results are published as M. Mossberg and Y. Irshad. <em>Closed-loop identific ation of stochastic models from filtered data</em>, In Proc. IEEE Multi-conference on Systems and Control,San Antonio, TX, September 3–5, 2008</p>

As the trends towards decentralization, miniaturization, and longevity of deployment continue in many domains, power management has become increasingly important. In this work, we develop power-aware control strategies for wireless sensor networks to improve the lifetime of the network and to ensure that the desired performance is guaranteed. For the case of static networks (networks of agents with no mobility), we identify the problem of the effects of power variations on the performance of an individual sensing device and on the entire network. To address this problem in a randomly deployed sensor network comprising of sensing devices whose sensing range is a function of transmitted power, we propose power-aware controllers to compensate for the variations in available power and maintain desired performance. We also propose a novel energy-efficient sleep-scheduling scheme that is random in nature and allows limited coordination among neighboring sensors for making switching decisions. This scheme is based on the concept of a hard-core point process from stochastic geometry, in which neighboring points are allowed to interact with each other through some predefined interaction laws. For the case of mobile networks (networks of agents with mobility), we propose a solid framework for distributed power-aware mobility strategies that can achieve any desired global objective while minimizing total energy consumption. This goal is achieved by first exploring fundamental trade-offs among various modes of operations of mobile devices and then exploiting these trade-offs for minimizing energy consumption. Through this framework, a whole class of decentralized power-aware controllers emerge for solving canonical problems in multi-agent systems like connectivity maintenance, rendezvous, and coverage control.

Networked control over wireless sensor and actuator systems is of growing importancein many application domains. Energy and communication bandwidth are scarce resources in such systems. Despite that feedback control might only be needed occasionally, sensor and actuator communications are often periodic and with high frequency in today’s implementations. In this thesis, resource-constrained wireless networked control systems with an adaptive sampling period are considered. Our first contribution is a system architecture for aperiodic wireless networked control. As the underlying data transmission is performed over a shared wireless network, we identify scheduling policies and medium access controls that allow for an efficient implementation of sensor communication. We experimentally validate three proposed mechanisms and show that best performance is obtained by a hybrid scheme, combining the advantages of event- and self-triggered control as well as the possibilities provided by contention-based and contention-free medium accesscontrol. In the second contribution, we propose an event-triggered PI controller for wireless process control systems. A novel triggering mechanism which decides the transmission instants based on an estimate of the control signal is proposed. It addresses some side-effects that have been discovered in previous PI proposals, which trigger on the state of the process. Through simulations we demonstrate that the new PI controller provides setpoint tracking and disturbance rejection close to a periodic PI controller, while reducing the required network resources. The third contribution proposes a co-design of feedback controllers and wireless medium access. The co-design is formulated as a constrained optimization problem, whereby the objective function is the energy consumption of the network and the constraints are the packet loss probability and delay, which are derived from the performance requirements of the control systems. The design framework is illustrated in a numerical example. / QC 20111004

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L'étude des Systèmes Contrôlés en Réseaux (SCR) repose sur l'identification des exigences de fonctionnement de l'application appelées Qualité de Contrôle (QdC) et sur l'évaluation de la Qualité de Service (QdS) offerte par le réseau. Les travaux sur les SCR se repartissent selon deux approches : la commande en réseau et la commande de réseau. Cette thèse se positionne sur la deuxième approche avec une recherche axée sur la modélisation des mécanismes d'ordonnancement implémentés dans les équipements réseau et notamment dans les commutateurs Ethernet qui sont de plus en plus utilisés dans les applications industrielles. Ce travail de recherche étudie plus particulièrement comme paramètre de QdS, les délais qui engendrent des perturbations sur le système commandé. Cette thèse propose deux modèles de classification de service reposant sur des ordonnanceurs WRR (Weighted Round Robin). La première modélisation suit une approche constructive en utilisant la théorie du calcul réseau. La seconde s'appuie sur une phase d'identification à partir de simulations numériques et de la logique floue. Dans les deux cas, le but est d'offrir une bande passante suffisante pour le trafic contraint temporellement tout en maximisant la bande passante dédiée aux autres trafics pour éviter des effets famine. L'approche calcul réseau permet de configurer le réseau hors-ligne pour répondre à des contraintes temporelles strictes du SCR. La solution basée sur la logique floue autorise une commande dynamique de l'ordonnanceur pour ajuster en ligne le réseau en fonction des variations du trafic. Elle ne peut s'appliquer qu'à des SCR ayant des contraintes de temps souples / The study of the Networked Control Systems (NCS) is based both on the identification of the application functioning requirements called Quality of Control (QoC) and on the evaluation of the Quality of Service (QoS) offered by the network. The studies on the NCS are classified according to two approaches: the control over network and the control of network. This thesis addresses the second approach and models the scheduling mechanisms implemented in the Ethernet switches that are more and more used in the industrial applications. The specific QoS parameter studied in this thesis is the delay disturbing the controlled system. This thesis proposes two models of classification of service based on WRR (Weighted Round Robin) schedulers. The first modeling follows a constructive approach by using the network calculus theory. The second is based on an identification step from numerical simulations and from the fuzzy logic. In the two cases, the purpose is both to offer enough bandwidth for the time constrained traffic and to maximize the bandwidth dedicated to the others traffics to avoid famine effects. The network calculus approach is used to configure off-line the network in respecting the NCS strict time constraints. The solution based on the fuzzy logic enables a dynamic control of the scheduler in order to tune on-line the network according to the traffic variations. This latter can be applied only to NCS with soft time constraints

Aujourd'hui, les réseaux de communications sont largement utilisés pour relier les points de ressources, qui permettent la transmission de données à distance, de réduire la complexité dans le cadre de câblage et les coûts de support et de fournir l'aide dans la maintenance. En raison de ces avantages, les réseaux ont été introduits dans les systèmes automatiques au cours de ces dernières décennies et de nouveaux protocoles de réseau industriel ont été également développés pour assurer le contrôle à distance. Les systèmes contrôlés en réseau SCR (Networked Control System NCS) sont des systèmes automatiques traditionnels où les actionneurs, les capteurs, les contrôleurs et des autres composants sont distribués autour d'un réseau de communication, qui peut être partagé ou non avec d'autres applications. Les données de commande et de diagnostic sont échangées entre les composants du système (capteur, contrôleur, actionneur) via ce réseau partagé. Cette nouvelle architecture de système de contrôle introduit des problèmes originaux, en termes de retard variable affectant la transmission, des pertes de paquets, etc. Dans l'objectif de maintenir de bonnes performances du module de diagnostic face à des éventuelles variations introduites par le réseau, il est intéressant d'introduire des nouvelles approches. Nous avons rapporté les résultats relatifs aux techniques d'estimation optimale à base de filtre de Kalman, de façon à constituer un document aussi complet que possible traitant la génération de résidus et l'isolation des défauts dans SCR. Notre contribution consiste, dans un premier temps, à développer un modèle d'état d'un système contrôlé via un réseau. En deuxième temps, nous proposons un générateur de résidus en se basant sur les hypothèses simulant le retard induit par le réseau. Finalement, nous développons un filtre isolateur pour identifier directement les défauts affectant les actionneurs dans un SCR / Today's communications networks are widely used to connect the resources, enabling the remote data transmission, reducing the cabling complexity, minimizing costs and providing easy maintenance. Because of these advantages, the networks have been introduced in automatic systems during recent decades and new industrial network protocols were also developed for the remote control. The systems controlled by networks, the term "Networked Control Systems (NCS)" are automatic traditional systems where the actuators, the sensors, the controllers and other components are distributed around a communication network that can be shared or not with other applications. The data of both control and diagnostic are exchanged between system components (sensor, controller and actuator) via the shared network. This new architecture of control system introduces new problems in terms of variable delay affecting the transmission, the packet loss, etc. With the aim to maintain good performance of diagnostic module face of possible changes introduced by the network, it is interesting to introduce new approaches. We have reported results for the optimal estimation techniques based on Kalman filter, thus creating a report as complete as possible, treating the residual generation and fault isolation in NCS. Our contribution consists, firstly, to develop a state space model of a system controlled via a network. Secondly, we propose a residual generator based on the delay models induced by the network. Finally, we develop a isolation filter in order to directly identify in the actuators faults in a SCR

Este trabalho investiga a influência da quantização em sistemas de controle em rede. São tratados problemas de estabilidade e estabilização de sistemas lineares de tempo discreto envolvendo quantização finita nas entradas da planta controlada, considerando dois tipos de quantizadores: os uniformes e os logarítmicos. Como consequência da quantização finita, ocorrem também efeitos de saturação e zonamorta dos sinais de entrada. Tais comportamentos não-lineares são considerados explicitamente na análise. Para plantas instáveis, o objetivo é estimar a região onde os estados estarão confinados em regime permanente. Esta região, denominada atrator dos estados, é estimada por meio de um conjunto elipsoidal. Ao mesmo tempo, determina-se um conjunto elipsoidal de condições iniciais admissíveis, para o qual se garante a convergência das trajetórias para o atrator em tempo finito. Primeiramente, esses conjuntos são determinados para o caso de um controlador dado e, posteriormente, sintetiza-se um controlador que minimiza o atrator. Em se tratando de plantas estáveis, investiga-se como o desempenho dinâmico é afetado pela quantização. Para tanto, utiliza-se como critério o coeficiente de decaimento exponencial que é garantido para o sistema. Nesta parte, excluem-se os comportamentos na região de saturação e na região da zona-morta. Primeiramente, o coeficiente de decaimento garantido é estimado para um sistema com controlador dado. Neste caso, faz-se uma análise de degradação de desempenho induzida pela quantização com relação ao comportamento do sistema em malha fechada sem quantização. Posteriormente, sintetiza-se um controlador que minimiza este coeficiente na presença da quantização. Na obtenção dos resultados, utilizam-se condições de setor respeitadas pelas não linearidades e formulam-se os problemas na forma de inequações matriciais que podem ser resolvidas a partir de problemas de otimização baseados em LMIs. / This work investigates the in uence of quantization over networked control systems. At rst, we tackle stability and stabilization problems of discrete-time linear systems involving nite quantization on the input of the controlled plant, considering two kinds of quantizers: uniform and logarithmic. As a consequence of the nite quantization, saturation and dead-zone e ects on the input signals are also present. These non-linear behaviors are explictly considered in the analysis. For unstable plants, the objective is to estimate the region where the states will be ultimately bounded. This region, which we call the attractor of the states, is estimated through an ellipsoidal set. Simultaneously, we determine an ellipsoidal set of admissible initial conditions, for which the trajectories will converge to the attractor in nite time. At rst, the sets are determined for the case where the controller is given and, in the sequel, a controller that minimizes the attractor is designed. When dealing with stable plants, we investigate how the dynamic performance is a ected by the quantization. To do that, we use as criterion the exponential decay rate which is guaranteed for the system. At this point, we exclude the behaviour in the saturation and deadzone regions. At rst, the guaranteed decay rate is estimated for a system where the controller is given. In this case, we analyze the deterioration of the performance in uenced by the quantization, compared to the behavior of the closed-loop system without quantization. In the sequel, a controller that minimizes that rate in the presence of quantization is designed. To obtain the results, we use sector conditions which are respected by the nonlinearities and we state the problems as matrix inequalities which can be solved using LMI-based optimization problems.

On considère la synthèse de la commande basée sur un asservissement affecté par des retards. L’approche utilisée repose sur des méthodes ensemblistes. Une partie de cette thèse est consacrée à une conception de commande active pour la compensation des retards qui apparaissent dans des canaux de communication entre le capteur et correcteur. Ce problème est considéré dans une perspective générale du cadre de commande tolérante aux défauts où des retards variés sont vus comme un mode particulier de dégradation du capteur. Le cas avec transmission de mesure retardée pour des systèmes avec des capteurs redondants est également examiné. Par conséquent, un cadre unifié est proposé afin de régler le problème de commande basé sur la transmission des mesures avec retard qui peuvent également être fournies par des capteurs qui sont affectés par des défauts soudains.Dans la deuxième partie le concept d’invariance positive pour des systèmes linéaires à retard à temps discret est exposé. En ce qui concerne l’invariance pour cette classe des systèmes dynamiques, il existe deux idées principales. La première approche repose sur la réécriture d’un tel système dans l’espace d’état augmenté et de le considérer comme un système linéaire. D’autre part, la seconde approche considère l’invariance dans l’espace d’état initial. Cependant, la caractérisation d’un tel ensemble invariant est encore une question ouverte, même pour le cas linéaire. Par conséquent, l’objectif de cette thèse est d’introduire une notion générale d’invariance positive pour des systèmes linéaires à retard à temps discret. Également, certains nouveaux éclairages sur l’existence et la construction pour les ensembles invariants positifs robustes sont détaillés. En outre, les nouveaux concepts d’invariance alternatives sont décrits. / We considered the process regulation which is based on feedback affected by varying delays. Proposed approach relies on set-based control methods. One part of the thesis examines active control design for compensation of delays in sensor-to controller communication channel. This problem is regarded in a general perspective of the fault tolerant control where delays are considered as a particular degradation mode of the sensor. Obtained results are also adapted to the systems with redundant sensing elements that are prone to abrupt faults. In this sense, an unified framework is proposed in order to address the control design with outdated measurements provided by unreliable sensors.Positive invariance for linear discrete-time systems with delays is outlined in the second part of the thesis. Concerning this class of dynamics, there are two main approaches which define positive invariance. The first one relies on rewriting a delay-difference equation in the augmented state-space and applying standard analysis and control design tools for the linear systems. The second approach considers invariance in the initial state-space. However, the initial state-space characterization is still an open problem even for the linear case and it represents our main subject of interest. As a contribution, we provide new insights on the existence of the positively invariant sets in the initial state-space. Moreover, a construction algorithm for the minimal robust D-invariant set is outlined. Additionally, alternative invariance concepts are discussed.

This dissertation presents a suite of design tools for multi-agent systems that address three main areas: network design, decentralized controller generation, and the synthesis of decentralized control strategies by combining individual decentralized controllers. First, a new metric for quantifying heterogeneity in multi-agent systems is presented based on combining different notions of entropy, and is shown to overcome the drawbacks associated with existing diversity metrics in various scientific fields. Moreover, a new method of controlling multi-agent networks through the single-leader network paradigm is presented where by directly exploiting the homogeneity of agent capabilities, a network which is not completely controllable can be driven closer to a desired target configuration than by using traditional control techniques. An algorithm is presented for generating decentralized control laws that allow for agents to best satisfy a desired global objective, while taking into account network topological constraints and limitations on how agents can compute their control signals. Then, a scripting tool is developed to aid in specifying sequences of decentralized controllers to be executed consecutively, while helping ensure that the required network topological requirements needed for each controller to execute properly are maintained throughout mode switches. Finally, the underlying concepts behind the developed tools are showcased in three example applications: distributed merging and spacing for heterogeneous aircraft during terminal approaches, collaborative multi-UAV convoy protection in dynamic environments, and an educational tool used to teach a graduate-level networked controls course at the Georgia Institute of Technology.