Multi - Objective Control and Coordination of Multi - Agent Systems

In this dissertation, control methodologies for systems of multiple mobile agents facing multiple objectives are considered. Carefully constructed objective functions for agents interested in any or all of collision avoidance, robust communications, waypoint following, and dynamic coverage objectives are presented. Theory relevant to gradient-like control laws designed using over-approximations of the maximum function is studied and applications 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 between multiple objectives are presented and applied to the design of multiagent control laws. Using over-approximations of the maximum function, appropriate definitions are presented to develop the conditions required for an agent to accomplish multiple objectives. The proposed control laws’ suitability for and ability to be implemented straightforwardly on various multi-agent systems facing multiple objectives are demonstrated in multiple simulation and experimental results. The proposed copula based control law and global coverage approach are discussed and validated through their combined implementation in a multi-robot testbed.