Networked control method keeps directional agents safe inside moving corridors
Networked Admissibility-Preserving Control for Directed Safe Coordination
Multiagent SystemsRobotics
Summary
This paper looks at how multiple simple devices can safely work together while respecting physical limits on their actions. The authors propose a new way to design control systems so that each device communicates over a network with directional links, making sure their combined outputs stay within a safe, moving zone. Their method also ensures that the actual commands stay within varying input limits and that all devices eventually agree on a shared goal. The analysis includes conditions guaranteeing safety and control limits are preserved even with asymmetric communication paths.
What this means in practice
- •For robotics engineers: Coordinate multiple robots under asymmetric communication while ensuring they stay within a safe operating region and respect actuator limits.
- •For power grid operators: Maintain safe voltage or frequency levels in a network with directional control signals while meeting hardware input constraints.
Authors
Abhinav Sinha, Lohitvel Gopikannan, Shashi Ranjan Kumar
Abstract
This paper addresses safety-critical coordination for scalar agents whose distributed commands are implemented through constrained physical-input dynamics. Agents communicate over a fixed weighted digraph with a directed spanning tree, while their outputs must remain inside a common moving safety corridor and their realized inputs must satisfy heterogeneous asymmetric bounds. We propose a networked Admissibility-Preserving Control (APC) architecture in which an Admissibility-Preserving Input Realization (APIR) governs physical inputs and a logarithmic barrier coordinate represents the safety corridor. The synthesis yields an exact cascade in which exponentially decaying realization errors drive nonsymmetric consensus dynamics. For every compatible compact initial set, the closed-loop system admits a unique complete solution, renders the moving corridor and actuator intervals forward invariant with uniform margins, keeps commands bounded, and achieves exponential consensus. We derive direction-specific sufficient conditions under which positive and negative control demands remain within their corresponding actuator limits. The analysis yields a closed-form barrier-coordinate limit determined by the left Perron vector and initial APIR mismatch. Under strong connectivity and the stated gain and compatibility conditions, partial pinning propagates a constant barrier reference from a nonempty informed subset and assigns the induced safety corridor trajectory. A non-weight-balanced example illustrates the directional certificate and predicted collective motion.