Analysis, design and implementation of cooperative control strategies for multi-robot systems under communication constraints is the topic of this thesis. Motivated by a rapidly growing number of applications with networked robots and other vehicles, fundamental limits on the achievable collaborative behavior are studied for large teams of autonomous agents. In particular, a problem is researched in detail in which the group of agents is supposed to agree on a common state without any centralized coordination. Due to the dynamics of the individual agents and their varying connectivity, this problemis an extension of the classical consensus problemin computer science. It captures a crucial component of many desirable features of multi-robot systems, such as formation, flocking, rendezvous, synchronizing and covering. Analytical bounds on the convergence rate to consensus are derived for several systemconfigurations. It is shown that static communication networks that exhibit particular symmetries yield slow convergence, if the connectivity of each agent does not scale with the total number of agents. On the other hand, some randomly varying networks allow fast convergence even if the connectivity is low. It is furthermore argued that if the data being exchanged between the agents are quantized, it may heavily degrade the performance. The extent to which certain quantization schemes are more suitable than others is quantified through relations between the number of agents and the required total network bit rate. The design of distributed coordination and estimation schemes based on the consensus algorithm is presented. A receding horizon coordination strategy utilizing subgradient optimization is developed. Robustness and implementation aspects are discussed. A new collaborative estimation method is also proposed. The implementation of multi-robot control systems is difficult due to the high systemcomplexity. In the final part of this thesis, a hierarchical control architecture appropriate for a class of coordination tasks is therefore suggested. It allows a formal verification of the correctness of the implemented control algorithms. / QC 20100920

<p>This thesis analyses how romanies look upon schooling and how they reflect upon the possibility of getting an education. Many inquiries relating to romanies have been published in Sweden but very few are based on fieldwork among romanies. The aim of this thesis is therefore to through fieldwork focus on how romanies themselves look upon their educational situation.</p><p>The main questions for this study are: How is the image of romanies as a problem constructed in school? How are romanies separated from other students? How is the interplay between romanies and school representatives formed? How do romanies look upon the possibility of getting an education and does their perception differ from the usual official apprehension?</p><p>An important conclusion concerns how social workers and teachers continuously categorize romanies as different. The group is constantly differentiated from other ethnic groups and is often the target of integration projects. This leads to a constant stigmatization of the group but also to “weak power”. In certain situations where the ethnic identity may be an advantage the ethnic identity is over communicated while it is under communicated in an inferior situation.</p>

This thesis analyses how romanies look upon schooling and how they reflect upon the possibility of getting an education. Many inquiries relating to romanies have been published in Sweden but very few are based on fieldwork among romanies. The aim of this thesis is therefore to through fieldwork focus on how romanies themselves look upon their educational situation. The main questions for this study are: How is the image of romanies as a problem constructed in school? How are romanies separated from other students? How is the interplay between romanies and school representatives formed? How do romanies look upon the possibility of getting an education and does their perception differ from the usual official apprehension? An important conclusion concerns how social workers and teachers continuously categorize romanies as different. The group is constantly differentiated from other ethnic groups and is often the target of integration projects. This leads to a constant stigmatization of the group but also to “weak power”. In certain situations where the ethnic identity may be an advantage the ethnic identity is over communicated while it is under communicated in an inferior situation.

Les Systèmes de Contrôle Embarqués Distribués (SCED) utilisent les réseaux de communication dans les boucles de rétroaction. Étant donné que les systèmes SCED ont une puissance de batterie, une bande passante de communication et une puissance de calcul limitée, les débits des données ou des informations transmises sont bornées et ils peuvent affecter leur stabilité. Ceci nous amène à élargir le spectre de notre étude et y intégrer une étude sur la relation entre la théorie du contrôle d’un coté et celle de l’information de l’autre. La contrainte de débit de données induit la quantification des signaux tandis que les aspects de calcul temps réel et de communication induit des événements asynchrones qui ne sont plus réguliers ou périodiques. Ces deux phénomènes donnent au SCED une double nature, continue et discrète, et en font des cas d’étude spécifiques. Dans cette thèse, nous analysons la stabilité et la performance de SCED du point de vue de la théorie de l’information et du contrôle. Pour les systèmes linéaires, nous montrons l’importance du compromis entre la quantité d’information communiquée et les objectifs de contrôle, telles que la stabilité, la contrôlabilité/observabilité et les performances. Une approche de conception conjointe de contrôle et de communication (en termes de débit d’information au sens de Shannon) des SCED est étudiée. Les principaux résultats de ces travaux sont les suivants : nous avons prouvé que la réduction d’entropie (ce qui correspond à la réduction d’incertitude) dépend du Grammien de contrôlabilité. Cette réduction est également liée à l’information mutuelle de Shannon. Nous avons démontré que le Grammien de contrôlabilité constitue une métrique de l’entropie théorique de l’information en ce qui concerne les bruits induits par la quantification. La réduction de l’influence de ces bruits est équivalente à la réduction de la norme du Grammien de contrôlabilité. Nous avons établi une nouvelle relation entre la matrice d’information de Fisher (FIM) et le Grammien de Contrôlabilité (CG) basé sur la théorie de l’estimation et la théorie de l’information. Nous proposons un algorithme qui distribue de manière optimale les capacités de communication du réseau entre un nombre "n" d’actionneurs et/ou systèmes concurrents se basant sur la réduction de la norme du Grammien de Contrôlabilité / The Networked Embedded Control System (NECS) uses communication networks in the feedback loops. Since the embedded systems have the limited battery power along with limited bandwidth and computing power, the feedback data rates are limited. The rate of communications can drastically affect system stability. Hence, there is a strong need for understanding and merging the Control Theory with Communication or Information Theory. The data rate constraint introduces quantization into the feedback loop whereas the communication or computational model induces discrete events which are no more periodic. These two phenomena give the NECS a twofold nature : continuous and discrete, and render them specific. In this thesis we analyze the stability and performance of NECS from Informationtheoretic point of view. For linear systems, we show how fundamental are the tradeoffs between the communication-rate and control goals, such as stability, controllability / observability and performances. An integrated approach of control and communication (in terms of Shannon Information Rate) of NECS or distributed embedded control systems is studied. The main results are as follows : We showed that the entropy reduction which is same as uncertainty reduction is dependent on Controllability Gramian only. It is also related to Shannon Mutual-Information. We demonstrated that the gramian of controllability constitutes a metric of information theoretic entropy with respect to the noises induced by quantization. Reduction of these noises is equivalent to the design methods proposing a reduction of the controllability gramian norm. We established a new relation of Fisher Information Matrix (FIM) and Controllability Gramian (CG) based on estimation-theoretic and information-theoretic explanations. We propose an algorithm which optimally distributes the network capacity between a number "n" of competing actuators. The metric of this distribution is the Controllability Gramian