Discrete synchronization of hybrid systems

Control theory is currently faced with new paradigms and challenges that fall beyond traditional problems. Nowadays applications tend to be distributed, and require partial synchronization among their various subsystems. In this paper, we give initial steps towards discrete synchronization problems for systems which are compositions of several, possibly distributed, hybrid systems. Such problems arise frequently in the coordination of multi-agent systems, where each agent is modeled as a hybrid system. This results in control problems where the model is the composition of decoupled subsystems, but the specification is coupled across subsystems. A centralized solution to this problem requires computing the product hybrid systems resulting in state explosion. We alternatively consider decentralized solutions to such discrete synchronization problems. Partially decentralized synchronization is achieved if each subsystem is allowed to communicate with the subsystems it needs to partially synchronize with. The required communication between agents is provided by mobile abstractions of the remaining agents. These abstractions, which are property-dependent, are then used to derive local controllers using global, but minimal, observations. Comments Copyright 2002 IEEE. Reprinted from Proceedings of the 41st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2002, Volume 1, pages 22-27. This material is posted here with permission of the IEEE. Such permission of the IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of any of the University of Pennsylvania's products or services. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE by writing to [email protected]. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it. This conference paper is available at ScholarlyCommons: http://repository.upenn.edu/ese_papers/114