skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Inducing persistence of excitation through sensor motion in the adaptive estimation of spatial fields
An alternative to regression-based estimation of spatial fields is adaptive-based estimation. Harnessing a widely used assumption on the series expansion of an unknown spatial field, the on-line estimation of the spatial field enables the integration of the real-time estimation of the field with any other tasks required of sensing agents. Parameter convergence in the adaptive estimation case requires the property of persistence of excitation. This condition reduces to imposing the integral of the outer product of a regressor vector be uniformly positive definite. With a single sensor measurement this is impossible to achieve unless the measurements are mobile. In this work, it is shown that in the adaptive estimation of a spatial field, a single mobile sensor is capable of inducing persistence of excitation and hence provide the sought after parameter convergence. Thus, the motion of a single sensor is a necessary condition for parameter convergence. It is shown with the appropriate control design for the platform carrying onboard the sensor, it also is a sufficient condition for persistence of excitation. Numerical results examining the time-variation of the regressor vector to induce a persistence of excitation along with user-defined guidance for the adaptive estimation of spatial fields are included to demonstrate the effects of mobile sensors in inducing persistence of excitation.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1825546
PAR ID:
10385855
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
2022 American Control Conference
Page Range / eLocation ID:
1673 to 1678
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. . (Ed.)
    This paper proposes a new approach for the adaptive functional estimation of second order infinite dimensional systems with structured perturbations. First, the proposed observer is formulated in the natural second order setting thus ensuring the time derivative of the estimated position is the estimated velocity, and therefore called natural adaptive observer. Assuming that the system does not yield a positive real system when placed in first order form, then the next step in deriving parameter adaptive laws is to assume a form of input-output collocation. Finally, to estimate structured perturbations taking the form of functions of the position and/or velocity outputs, the parameter space is not identified by a finite dimensional Euclidean space but instead is considered in a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space. Such a setting allows one not to be restricted by a priori assumptions on the dimension of the parameter spaces. Convergence of the position and velocity errors in their respective norms is established via the use of a parameter-dependent Lyapunov function, specifically formulated for second order infinite dimensional systems that include appropriately defined norms of the functional errors in the reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. Boundedness of the functional estimates immediately follow and via an appropriate definition of a persistence of excitation condition for functional estimation, a functional convergence follows. When the system is governed by vector second order dynamics, all abstract spaces for the state evolution collapse to a Euclidean space and the natural adaptive observer results simplify. Numerical results of a second order PDE and a multi-degree of freedom finite dimensional mechanical system are presented. 
    more » « less
  2. In this thesis, I present a decentralized sparse Gaussian process regression (DSGPR) model with event-triggered, adaptive inducing points. This DSGPR model brings the advantages of sparse Gaussian process regression to a decentralized implementation. Being decentralized and sparse provides advantages that are ideal for multi-agent systems (MASs) performing environmental modeling. In this case, MASs need to model large amounts of information while having potential intermittent communication connections. Additionally, the model needs to correctly perform uncertainty propagation between autonomous agents and ensure high accuracy on the prediction. For the model to meet these requirements, a bounded and efficient real-time sparse Gaussian process regression (SGPR) model is needed. I improve real-time SGPR models in these regards by introducing an adaptation of the mean shift and fixed-width clustering algorithms called radial clustering. Radial clustering enables real-time SGPR models to have an adaptive number of inducing points through an efficient inducing point selection process. I show how this clustering approach scales better than other seminal Gaussian process regression (GPR) and SGPR models for real-time purposes while attaining similar prediction accuracy and uncertainty reduction performance. Furthermore, this thesis addresses common issues inherent in decentralized frameworks such as high computation costs, inter-agent message bandwidth restrictions, and data fusion integrity. These challenges are addressed in part through performing maximum consensus between local agent models which enables the MAS to gain the advantages of decentralization while keeping data fusion integrity. The inter-agent communication restrictions are addressed through the contribution of two message passing heuristics called the covariance reduction heuristic and the Bhattacharyya distance heuristic. These heuristics enable user to reduce message passing frequency and message size through the Bhattacharyya distance and properties of spatial kernels. The entire DSGPR framework is evaluated on multiple simulated random vector fields. The results show that this framework effectively estimates vector fields using multiple autonomous agents. This vector field is assumed to be a wind field; however, this framework may be applied to the estimation of other scalar or vector fields (e.g., fluids, magnetic fields, electricity, etc.). Keywords: Sparse Gaussian process regression, clustering, event-triggered, decentralized, sensor fusion, uncertainty propagation, inducing points 
    more » « less
  3. This article presents an online parameter identification scheme for advection-diffusion processes using data collected by a mobile sensor network. The advection-diffusion equation is incorporated into the information dynamics associated with the trajectories of the mobile sensors. A constrained cooperative Kalman filter is developed to provide estimates of the field values and gradients along the trajectories of the mobile sensors so that the temporal variations in the field values can be estimated. This leads to a co-design scheme for state estimation and parameter identification for advection-diffusion processes that is different from comparable schemes using sensors installed at fixed spatial locations. Using state estimates from the constrained cooperative Kalman filter, a recursive least-square (RLS) algorithm is designed to estimate unknown model parameters of the advection-diffusion processes. Theoretical justifications are provided for the convergence of the proposed cooperative Kalman filter by deriving a set of sufficient conditions regarding the formation shape and the motion of the mobile sensor network. Simulation and experimental results show satisfactory performance and demonstrate the robustness of the algorithm under realistic uncertainties and disturbances. 
    more » « less
  4. In this paper, we address the problem of model-free optimal output regulation of discrete-time systems that aims at achieving asymptotic tracking and disturbance rejection when we have no exact knowledge of the system parameters. Insights from reinforcement learning and adaptive dynamic programming are used to solve this problem. An interesting discovery is that the model-free discrete-time output regulation differs from the continuous-time counterpart in terms of the persistent excitation condition required to ensure the uniqueness and convergence of the policy iteration. In this work, it is shown that this persistent excitation condition must be carefully established in order to ensure the uniqueness and convergence properties of the policy iteration. 
    more » « less
  5. For Real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) to be stable and accurate, it is essential to address the time desynchronization issue between the numerical and physical substructures. Desynchronization is primarily caused by time delays, inherent dynamics of the control plant, system uncertainties, and noises. While existing adaptive compensators have shown effective tracking performance in single-input single-output (SISO) RTHS, their effectiveness in multi-input multi-output (MIMO) RTHS has not been fully demonstrated. MIMO-RTHS presents additional challenges due to its larger solution space, and significant dynamic coupling between actuators. To address these challenges, this study introduces an adaptive compensation framework for MIMO-RTHS. The proposed framework utilizes a control law based on the inverse dynamics of the control plant, incorporating real-time adaptive parameter updates through Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) and Unscented Kalman Filter (UKF) methods. Both the transfer function (TF) and discrete-time state-space (SS) models of the plant are employed in distinct parameter estimation cases. The performance of the proposed compensation is validated through a multi-axial RTHS (maRTHS) benchmark problem. Extensive simulations on the maRTHS incorporating various earthquake inputs, sensor noise, and model uncertainties, demonstrated an excellent tracking performance and strong robustness across four parameter estimation cases (EKF-TF, UKF-TF, EKF-SS, and UKF-SS). The use of UKF with SS model (UKF-SS) achieved superior performance, effectively managing nonlinearities and noise without requiring low-pass filtering. 
    more » « less