Multi-objective control and coordination of multi-agent systems
Christopher G. Valicka · 2013
In this dissertation, control methodologies for systems of multiple mobile agents facing multiple objectives are considered. Carefully constructed ob-jective functions for agents interested in any or all of collision avoidance, robust communications, waypoint following, and dynamic coverage objec-tives are presented. Theory relevant to gradient-like control laws designed using over-approximations of the maximum function is studied and applica-tions of developed controllers in simulations and physical experiments are presented. Agent behavior resulting from and relevant to the various objectives is discussed. Amongst the various objective functions, novel formulations for proximity and global coverage objectives are presented. A novel control law design is developed based on copula structures from multiattribute decision theory. Systematic and intuitive methods for determining the tradeoffs be-tween multiple objectives are presented and applied to the design of multi-