Cloud-based predictive formation control of networked multi-agent system and its application to air bearing spacecraft simulators

Lei Cao; Guo-Ping Liu; Da-Wei Zhang

doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2023.03.013

Cloud-based predictive formation control of networked multi-agent system and its application to air bearing spacecraft simulators

ISA Trans. 2023 Jul:138:696-704. doi: 10.1016/j.isatra.2023.03.013. Epub 2023 Mar 14.

Authors

Lei Cao¹, Guo-Ping Liu², Da-Wei Zhang³

Affiliations

¹ Center for Control Theory and Guidance Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. Electronic address: 18B904027@stu.hit.edu.cn.
² Center for Control Theory and Guidance Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China; Center for Control Science and Technology, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China. Electronic address: liugp@sustech.edu.cn.
³ Center for Control Theory and Guidance Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin 150001, China. Electronic address: zhangdawei@stu.hit.edu.cn.

PMID: 36941135
DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2023.03.013

Abstract

This paper studies a class of networked multi-agent systems with communication delays. A centralized cloud predictive control protocol is proposed to realize formation control of multiple agents and especially the predictive method is introduced to actively compensate for the delays in the network. The analysis of closed-loop networked multi-agent systems provides the necessary and sufficient condition of stability and consensus. Finally, the proposed cloud-based predictive formation control scheme is verified by its application to 3-degree-of-freedom air-bearing spacecraft simulators platform. The results show that the scheme can effectively compensate for the delays in the forward channel and the feedback channel and can be applied to the networked multi-agent systems well.

Keywords: Air-bearing spacecraft; Cloud-based control; Networked multi-agent systems; Predictive formation control; Stability and consensus.