SPRINGER BRIEFS IN ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER
ENGINEERING CONTROL, AUTOMATION AND ROBOTICS
Minghui Zhu
Sonia Martínez
Distributed
Optimization-Based
Control of Multi-
Agent Networks
in Complex
Environments
123
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer
Engineering
Control, Automation and Robotics
Series editors
Tamer Başar
Antonio Bicchi
Miroslav Krstic
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10198
Minghui Zhu Sonia Martínez
Distributed
Optimization-Based
Control of Multi-Agent
Networks in Complex
Environments
123
Minghui Zhu
Department of Electrical Engineering
Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA
USA
Sonia Martínez
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace
Engineering
University of California, San Diego
La Jolla, CA
USA
ISSN 2191-8120
ISSN 2191-8112
SpringerBriefs in Electrical and Computer Engineering
ISSN 2192-6786
ISSN 2192-6794
SpringerBriefs in Control, Automation and Robotics
ISBN 978-3-319-19071-6
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-19072-3
(electronic)
(electronic)
ISBN 978-3-319-19072-3
(eBook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015939436
Mathematics Subject Classification: 93-02
Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London
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To Danying and my parents
Minghui Zhu
To Jorge, Jon Nicolás, and Alexandra
Sonia Martínez
Preface
Smart communication, computing, sensing, and actuation devices are increasingly
permeating through our world in an unstoppable manner. These technological
advances are fostering the emergence of a variety of large-scale networked systems
and applications, including multivehicle networks, the smart grid, smart buildings,
medical device networks, intelligent transportation systems, and social networks.
It has been an efficient practice to abstract these complex systems as multi-agent
networks. In particular, each agent in the network represents a strategic entity and is
able to communicate, sense, compute, and autonomously react to surrounding
changes. The interactions among the agents allow them to solve problems beyond
their individual capabilities, resulting in a whole that is certainly more than the sum
of its parts.
In order to ensure that the network performs at an optimal level, agents face the
problem of choosing the best option among a set of candidates. Distributed opti-
mization-based control (DOC, for short) provides a holistic and mathematically
rigorous framework to entail network-wide optimal decision making and control. In
particular, desired network-wide behavior is encoded as a DOC problem where
agents seek for different subobjectives and are required to obey inhomogeneous
constraints of physical dynamics and decision choices. This class of problems is
characterized by a number of salient features. First, the network consists of a large
number of geographically distributed agents. Second, due to information privacy,
the agents may not be willing to disclose their own components which define the
DOC problem. Third, the agents are expected to self-adapt to internal faults and
external changes. Given these features, the top-down frameworks in classic cen-
tralized and hierarchical approaches are not well suited for the needs of DOC.
It necessitates bottom-up paradigms, i.e, the synthesis of distributed algorithms
which allow the agents to coordinate with others via autonomous actions and local
interactions resulting into an emerging network-wide behavior that globally opti-
mizes the problem of interest. Bottom-up paradigms are characterized by that the
desired global behavior emerges from local actions and interactions.
In a number of engineering applications, agents are required to operate in
dynamically changing, uncertain, and hostile environments. Take multivehicle
vii
viii
Preface
networks as an example. Due to a limited communication bandwidth, underwater
vehicles can only exchange information intermittently and thus intervehicle
communication topologies frequently change over time. Ground vehicles may be
commanded to perform surveillance missions in a region where the environmental
information is not provided in advance. In addition, aerial vehicles operate far away
from base stations and thus can be compromised by human adversaries who may
attack the cyber infrastructures. In order to ensure the high performance and high
confidence of multi-agent networks, DOC should explicitly take into account the
unforeseeable elements during the algorithm design and performance analysis.
An Outline of the Book
This book aims at a concise and in-depth exposition of specific algorithmic solu-
tions for DOC and their performance analysis. We focus on addressing the par-
ticular challenges
topological
dynamics, environmental uncertainties, and cyber adversaries via integrating mis-
cellaneous ideas and tools from Dynamic Systems, Control Theory, Graph Theory,
Optimization, Game Theory, and Markov Chains. To achieve this goal, we organize
the book in the following way:
induced by the environmental complexities:
Chapter 1 presents a summary of mathematical tools for DOC used in this book.
We start with the consensus problem, a canonical problem in multi-agent networks.
In particular, we introduce the matrix representation of multi-agent networks as well
as the algorithms and convergence results for static and dynamic average consen-
sus. After this, we present a concise introduction to convex optimization and
noncooperative game theory. We conclude with a treatment of Markov chains and
stochastic stability.
Chapter 2 studies a class of generic distributed convex optimization problems. In
particular, each agent is associated with a private objective function and a private
convex constraint set. Meanwhile, all the agents are subject to a pair of global
inequality and equality constraints. The key feature of the problem is that all the
component functions depend upon a global decision variable. The agents aim to
agree upon two global quantities: (1) a global minimizer of the sum of all private
objective functions, simultaneously enforcing all the given constraints; (2) the
induced optimal value.
Chapter 3 investigates a game theoretic solution of an optimal sensor deploy-
ment problem. In particular, a set of mobile visual sensors are self-deployed in a
geographically extended environment
to accomplish a variety of Intelligence,
Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) missions, such as environmental monitor-
ing, source seeking, and target assignment. The key feature of the problem is that
the environmental distribution function is unknown a priori but its values can be
measured on site.
Chapter 4 considers attack-resilient distributed formation control of operator-
vehicle networks. Through communication infrastructures, human operators