A supervisory control policy over an acoustic communication network

Alireza Farhadi (1) , Jonathan Dumon (2) , Carlos Canudas de Wit (3)

1 Department of Electrical Engineering - Sharif University of Technology
2 GIPSA-Services - GIPSA-Services
3 NECS - Networked Controlled Systems

This paper presents a supervisory multi-agent control policy over an acoustic communication network subject to imperfections (packet dropout and transmission delay) for localization of an underwater flow source (e.g., source of chemical pollution, fresh water, etc.) with an unknown location at the bottom of the ocean. A two-loop control policy combined with a coding strategy for reliable communication is presented to perform the above task. A simulator is developed and used to evaluate the trade-offs between quality of communication, transmission delay and control for a fleet of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) supervised over a noisy acoustic communication network by an Autonomous Surface Vessel (ASV). It is illustrated that without compensation of the effects of severe random packet dropout, localization of an unknown underwater flow source is not possible for the condition simulated just by implementing a two-loop control policy. But, a two-loop control policy combined with a strategy for reliable communication locates the unknown location of flow source.

Mots clés: supervisory control; multi-agent system; Networked control system

Domaines: Automatique / Robotique

Alireza Farhadi, Jonathan Dumon, Carlos Canudas de Wit. A supervisory control policy over an acoustic communication network. International Journal of Control, 2015, 88 (5), pp.946-958. ⟨10.1080/00207179.2014.986201⟩. ⟨hal-01132426⟩