Project Summary
The principal objective of this project is the development of novel
control architectures and computationally efficient controller design
algorithms for distributed cyber-physical systems with decentralized
information infrastructures and limited communication capabilities. We
are interested in distributed cyber-physical systems where the system
components are able to communicate with one another. Cooperative active
safety in Intelligent Transportation Systems is our focus cyber-physical
application. Our methodology for design of communicating distributed
hybrid controllers aims to integrate in a novel manner discrete-event
controller design and hybrid controller design and optimization. Both
safety and liveness specifications will be addressed. The methodology to
be developed exploits problem decomposition and is aimed at
cyber-physical systems that share features of modularity in system
representation, partial information, and limited communication. The
technical approach consists of the following steps: (i) abstraction of
the essential features of the cyber-physical system as a formal
discrete-event model; (ii) synthesis of a set of distributed
discrete-event control laws as well as sensor activation and
communication strategies for the system agents;
(iii) incorporation of the underlying continuous dynamics of the
cyber-physical system with the preceding distributed control logic for
the purpose of hybrid controller design and quantitative performance
optimization; (iv) iteration between steps (ii) and (iii) for
performance improvement.
The cyber-physical application that will serve as a platform for the
validation of the results is that of cooperative active safety in
Intelligent Transportation Systems. The essential features of collision
avoidance scenarios (safety and liveness) will be retained from a
roundabout test-bed, which will be implemented in Co-PI Del Vecchio's
laboratory.