2021/08/18 by Babak Salamat, Salamat, Babak, Christopher Johannes Starck +3
Computer Science · Engineering · #Adaptive Control of Nonlinear Systems #Control and Stability of Dynamical Systems #Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Robotics (cs.RO)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2108.10153
openalex publication_date 2021/08/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Controlling large-scale particle or robot systems is challenging because of their high dimensionality. We use a centralized stochastic approach that allows for optimal control at the cost of a central element instead of a decentralized approach. Previous works are often restricted to the assumption of fully actuated robots. Here we propose an approach for underactuated robots that allows for energy-efficient control of the robot system. We consider a simple task of gathering the robots (minimizing positional variance) and steering them towards a goal point within a bounded area without obstacles. We make two main contributions. First, we present a generalized coordinate transformation for underactuated robots, whose physical properties should be considered. We choose Euler- Lagrange systems that describe a large class of robot systems. Second, we propose an optimal control mechanism with the prime objective of energy efficiency. We show the feasibility of our approach in numerical simulations and robot simulations.