Autonomous Cooperative System Research Articles

Stability of Certain Non-Autonomous Cooperative Systems of Difference Equations with the Application to Evolutionary Dynamics

This paper investigates the dynamics of non-autonomous cooperative systems of difference equations with asymptotically constant coefficients. We are mainly interested in global attractivity results for such systems and the application of such results to evolutionary population cooperation models. We use two methods to extend the global attractivity results for autonomous cooperative systems to related non-autonomous cooperative systems which appear in recent problems in evolutionary dynamics.

Control Layer Security: A New Security Paradigm for Cooperative Autonomous Systems

Control Layer Security: A New Security Paradigm for Cooperative Autonomous Systems

An autonomous cooperative system of multi-AUV for underwater targets detection and localization

This paper proposes a cooperative online target detection methodology by multiple autonomous underwater vehicles (Multi-AUV) equipped with the side-scan sonar (SSS) sensor for real-time, accurate, and efficient underwater target detection and positioning in unknown environments. Due to the existence of unfavorable factors such as severe noises and geometric deformation of SSS images, this study incorporates the prior-based threshold segmentation with multi-scale cascaded networks (MSCNet) to reduce the high false alarm rate significantly. Specifically, to the real-time requirements of the AUVs computational platform, this study proposes the sequentially dual-branch lightweight block (LWBlock) as a baseline to obtain dense feature maps, which provide a good trade-off between accuracy and speed. Meanwhile, this study establishes the comprehensive correction model, which obtains the accurate target positioning information fusing with the predicted results. Furthermore, according to the target information provided by the automatic target recognition (ATR) system, the data-driven behavior-based (DDBB) path re-planning algorithm is performed that endows each AUV to scan above the interest target autonomously and in detail by designed maneuver behavior. Simulation and actual sea trial experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms, and achieves the recognition accuracy of 92.16%, inference speed of 2.45 s, and obtained the best FPR indicator in three SSS targets of 2.54% (metal ball),1.96% (seabed rock) and 1.03% (metal rod), respectively. At the same time, the proposed algorithm can improve detection efficiency by at least 40% compared with a single AUV, which can be widely used in marine mission exploration and resource deployment.

Improved Protocols and Stability Analysis for Multivehicle Cooperative Autonomous Systems

With increasing growth of vehicles, traffic congestion and safety deserve to be looked at more closely. Cooperative autonomous driving is an effective solution to reduce traffic congestion and ensure traffic safety. In this paper, cooperative autonomous control of multiple vehicles is considered to realize sharing the same roads without collusion with each other. Lane-following and braking control are two basic operations of cooperative driving. The objectives of lane-following are to make intervehicles keep a safe spacing and run on the middle position of a lane. To reach the targets, two distributed control protocols are proposed in which we consider not only lateral control but also longitudinal control. The stability analysis is also shown for both the control protocols. Braking control is another basic operation for autonomous cooperative control. In order to make vehicles stop at the desired target stopping position (TSP), a new braking control protocol is also designed, and the convergence of which is analyzed and shown that, under three kinds of distinct braking control parameters, the position of the mass center of all vehicles exponentially converges to the TSP, and the velocity of the mass center of all vehicles exponentially converges to zero, which provide a guide for selecting the braking control parameters in real engineering applications. Moreover, the initial and limit conditions of position and velocity are discussed. Simulations demonstrate the validity and superiority of the proposed control protocols compared with existing approaches.

Guest Editorial <newline/>Special Issue on Networked Cooperative Autonomous Systems

The papers in this special section focus on the technology and applications supported by networked cooperative autonomous systems.

Towards a framework for more robust validation and verification of simulation models for systems of systems

We present a framework for verification and validation of simulation models of System of Systems that is based on an existing framework for modeling and simulation. The framework addresses problems arising especially in recently emerging Systems of Systems such as cyber-physical autonomous cooperative systems. The design of such systems presents challenges to the currently employed independent use of simplified models for formal verification or brute-force simulations which are severely limited in the range of conditions they can test. The proposed framework is applied to integration of formal analytic and simulation verification methods where there is a need to have confidence that the properties proved for idealized abstract models also hold in more realistic models which gave rise to the abstractions. Taking both logical and probabilistic perspectives clarifies the situation and suggests where more research is needed.

Macroscopic stable mechanism of autonomous cooperative system

The cohesiveness of autonomous cooperative system is the basis of achieving the effective communication and cooperation among the multiple vehicles. Therefore, the biosphere mechanism of queen mandibular pheromone is used for reference in this paper, to abstract the macro motion characteristic of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles autonomous cooperative tracking system. Then, some Lyapunov functions are constructed to analyze the stability of this system, thus obtaining its judgment criterion of stability. Finally, the simulation is given to verify the effectiveness of the proposed stable mechanism. The results show that the proposed stable mechanism not only can ensure the stability of autonomous cooperative system, but also can control the scale of this system effectively by adapting some relevant control parameters.

The Concept of Umwelt Overlap and its Application to Cooperative Action in Multi-Agent Systems

The present paper stems from the biosemiotic modelling of individual artificial cognition proposed by Ferreira and Caldas (2012) but goes further by introducing the concept of Umwelt Overlap. The introduction of this concept is of fundamental importance making the present model closer to natural cognition. In fact cognition can only be viewed as a purely individual phenomenon for analytical purposes. In nature it always involves the crisscrossing of the spheres of action of those sharing the same environmental bubble. Plus, the incorporation of that concept is vital to understand the complex semiosis that sustains collective tissues, societies, regulating collective cognition and consequently cooperative action. The concept of Umwelt Overlap broadens the range of applicability of the previous model to several distinct domains allowing for example for its application to multi-agent cooperative autonomous systems. In this paper a Middle Size League RoboCup soccer team is used as an example of a possible application.

Agent virtual machine for automation controllers: Example application: Shipboard automation

We are interested in providing an agent infrastructure for truly distributed control. Requirements include multiple language implementations, so that this agent host environment can exist in both real-time controllers and contain the ability to operate with external agent systems. Our first infrastructure, the Autonomous Cooperative System (ACS), accomplished these goals, but presented other issues. Although ACS has been successfully deployed on commercial controllers, new releases of controllers will cause complications in the evolution of the software and adoption of future functionality. We need to establish a formal integration procedure of the agent functionality with the controllers and to transform the underlying system into a fully integrated and open heterogeneous system. We use a shipboard automation example to demonstrate the use of the agent virtual machine. With this system, the shipboard automation system is designed as a distributed and survivable environment, thereby spreading intelligence throughout the controllers and not in central locations.

Coordination of the multi agent system and ITS application to robot soccer

Multi-Agent-System (MAS) consists of a group of agents that can take a specific role within an organizational structure. The coordination of the multi agents is associated with a lot of supplementary work in advance. The robot soccer system is a good technique for multi-robot cooperative autonomous systems, with highly coordinated operations and movements as to fulfil specific objectives, even under adverse situations. Robot soccer system helps to understand and provide with theory and principles for constructing complex systems with multiple agents and their coordination or competition in dynamical environments. On the other side robot soccer is a good tool for the edutainment of technical fields such as mechanical, electrical, software engineering etc. In this article, we introduced the development of the robot soccer system at Mechanical Engineering Faculty. According to the experience with the students the robot soccer is very good tool for the education of different engineering as well as technical subjects. They can study and perfect their knowledge on simulator application and its real time application to robot soccer that can enable to implement their own ideas, in particularly.

Load balancing in distributed autonomous cooperative systems

There have been many studies of load balancing in computer systems, for which various algorithms have been proposed. The load balancing methods to date can largely be divided into two types. In the first method, the load information is exchanged among the nodes, and the loads of the nodes are balanced by transferring the request calls. In the second method, the load balancing scheduler in the system monitors the load state in each node, and allocates request calls so that the loads of the nodes are balanced. In contrast to those methods, this paper proposes a load balancing method in a distributed autonomous cooperative system, where the nodes operate asynchronously according to their own decisions. In the proposed method the scheduler is not necessary, and load information is not exchanged or request calls transferred among the nodes. As a result of evaluation by simulation, it is seen that the proposed load balancing method can be applied to a system composed of nodes with uniform performance, as well as to a system composed of nodes with nonuniform performance. The following results were also obtained. (1) In the system composed of nodes with uniform performance, the average response time is less when the load is high, compared to the load balancing methods used to date. (2) In the system composed of nodes with nonuniform performance, the load can be balanced to reduce the average response time not only for the case where only CPU processing is considered in the node, but also for the case where both CPU processing and IO processing are considered. © 2000 Scripta Technica, Syst Comp Jpn, 31(6): 74–89, 2000

Multi-Agent Systems: A Survey from the Robot-Soccer Perspective

ABSTRACTOne of the most challenging goals in artificial intelligence (AI) is the development of artificial intelligent autonomous agents with human-level performance. The past few years has witnessed a tremendous interest in research and discussions on intelligent agents. With the ever increasing number of robots in an industrial environment, scientists and technologists are often faced with issues on cooperation and coordination among different robots and their self governance in a common work-space. This has led to developments in multi-robot cooperative autonomous systems. With an aim to study issues such as group architecture, resource conflict, origin of cooperation, learning and geometric problems, groups of robots are constructed. The proponents of multi-robot autonomous systems needed a model to validate the theories being proposed and to test their efficacy and efficiency. It is no surprise that they started focussing on robot soccer. Robot soccer makes heavy demands in all the key areas of robot...

Intelligent mobile agents in large distributed autonomous cooperative systems

A large distributed autonomous cooperative system is a system that provides fundamental services for integrating high-level services in a large distributed system with local autonomy for individual system platforms and processes. This paper discusses the role and the functions of Intelligent Mobile Agents (IMAs) in large distributed autonomous cooperative systems. Rather than providing services to a user at the application level, IMAs considered in this paper are deemed an integral part of system level software and perform tasks that are considered central to the distributed system. A variety of solutions to problems that are inherent to the distributed nature of the computing infrastructure may be implemented through a system of IMAs. These problems include, but are by no means limited to, load balancing, scheduling, information retrieval and management, distributed decision support, routing and flow control, security and intrusion detection. In this paper we discuss some of characteristics of IMA based systems central to solving some of these problems. The effectiveness of IMAs in large distributed systems clearly depends on the design and implementation of the underlying IMA architecture. This paper discusses the features that must be provided by the IMA infrastructure in support of IMAs that are an integral part of the large distributed autonomous cooperative system.

A Mechanism of Sharing Objects in Cooperative Autonomous Systems

A Mechanism of Sharing Objects in Cooperative Autonomous Systems

Stability for some equations of mathematical biology and monotone flows

The theory of monotone flows and operators is applied to study stable equilibria of autonomous cooperative systems and stable periodic solutions of periodic perturbations of these systems. The connection between analyticity and the property of asymptotic stability is established.