ReAIC: Reactive Active Inference Control for Enhanced Performance of Robotic Manipulators

Freeway Traffic Control - An adaptive control approach towards easy-to-implement Variable Speed Limit algorithms

Nowadays, the high demand for road transportation often reaches a point where it exceeds the capacity of freeway traffic networks, resulting in congestion. Freeway traffic congestion is a major social problem, as it is the reason for increased time delays, higher accident risk and environmental pollution. There is, therefore, the need for a...

Adaptive control with Multivariate B-Splines and INDI: A case study for Vertical take-off and landing drones

In recent years the popularity of VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) drones has increased significantly. Due to their hybrid design, these drones can take off and land vertically and fly horizontally, enabling them to land in difficult terrain and have a more extensive range than the Quadcopter counterpart. However, this hybrid design also...

Adaptive Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion for Consistent Pitch Rate Control

Control augmentation systems based on Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (INDI) are able to provide high-performance nonlinear control without the need for a model of the complete system. Considering a pitch rate control law for a fixed-wing aircraft, only a model for the elevator control effectiveness (CE) and sensor feedback of the pitch...

Adaptive Control for Evolutionary Robotics: And its effect on learning directed locomotion

This thesis is motivated by evolutionary robot systems where robot bodies and brains evolve simultaneously. In such a robot system, `birth' must be followed by `infant learning' by a learning method that works for various morphologies evolution may produce. Here we address the task of directed locomotion in modular robots with controllers based...

Active inference for adaptive and fault tolerant control: An application to robot manipulators

Dealing with inherently unmodeled dynamics and large parameter variations or faults, is a challenging task while controlling robot manipulators. Classical control techniques cannot usually provide satisfactory responses, and often external supervision systems have to be designed to handle the faults. Recent research has shown that active...

Model-based Flight Control for a VTOL Aircraft with Independently Tilting Rotors

This thesis reports on the research and design of a real-time Time-Varying Model Predictive Control (TVMPC) scheme to stabilize a tilt-rotor aircraft with four independently tilting rotors. The aircraft design stems from a prototype system constructed by the drone technology start-up Avy.<br/>First, a motivation is presented for implementation...

Improving Learning Performance in a Reaching Task by Real-time Adaptation of Augmented Error Feedback Rules

Neurologically impaired patients can regain motor function by engaging in rehabilita- tion. Currently there is no conclusive evidence that robotic rehabilitation has better clinical results than conventional rehabilitation but robotic rehabil- itation has the potential to increase efficiency and patient motivation, justifying improvement of reha...

Adaptation of a non-linear controller based on Reinforcement Learning

Closed-loop control systems, which utilize output signals for feedback to generate control inputs, can achieve high performance. However, robustness of feedback control loops can be lost if system changes and uncertainties are too large. Adaptive control combines the traditional feedback structure with providing adaptation mechanisms that adjust...

Adaptive Synchronization over Uncertain Multi-Agent Systems: A distributed homogenization-based approach

A challenging task in synchronization of multi-agent systems is steering the network towards a coherent solution when the dynamics of the constituent systems are heterogeneous and residing in a possibly large uncertainty set. In this situation, synchronization can be achieved via adaptive protocols (with adaptive feedback gains, or adaptive...

Estimating uncertainties in cooperative networks

The cooperative output regulation problem has attracted considerable attention due to its wide applications in several real life problems; in the past decade, the cooperative control of multi-agent systems has become a trendy topic in the control community.<br/>In the cooperative output regulation problem the main purpose consists in achieving...

Synchronization of Uncertain Heterogeneous Agents: An Adaptive Virtual Model Reference Approach

Synchronization of Multi-Agent Systems (MASs) has the potential to benefit many technological<br/>areas such as formation control for unmanned vehicles, cooperative adaptive<br/>cruise control, and spacecraft attitude control. Information plays a crucial role in MASs:<br/>in centralized approaches, a central node utilizes global information to...

Robust Reset Control using Adaptive / Iterative Learning Control

Reset controllers can outperform PID controllers and may introduce phase advantage compared to linear PID control. However, in general, reset controllers do not have the same steady state properties as linear controllers, like removing steady state errors. In case of model mismatches and disturbances, this may cause limit cycles (persisting...

Vision-based stabilization of micro quadrotors

On-board stabilization of quadrotors is often done using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), aided by additional sensors to combat the IMU drift. For example, GPS readings can aid when flying outdoors, or when flying in GPS denied environments, such as indoors, visual information from one or more camera modules can be used. <br/>A single...

Adaptive strategies for platooning

Automated driving, one of the rapidly growing research topics in the field of smart traffic, has proved to be a recognized solution for potentially improving road throughput and reducing vehicles' energy consumption by grouping individual vehicles into platoons controlled by one leading vehicle. <br/><br/>The advances in distributed inter...

Adaptive quantized control for uncertain networked systems

Major advancements over the last few decades in communication networks gave rise to the<br/>new paradigm of Networked Control Systems (NCSs). Within this paradigm, sensing and<br/>actuation signals are exchanged among various parts of a single system or among many<br/>subsystems via communication networks. Although this enables one to perform...