Optimal Controller Switching for Resource-constrained Dynamical Systems

2018, Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems and The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature. In this paper, we present the resource-optimal controller switching synthesis for dynamical systems subject to resource constraints. Particularly, for systems having limited computational power (CPU) and onboard energy (battery), it is crucial to keep resource usage as low as possible. Although restrictions on resource utilization may save a CPU time and battery life, it degrades system performance. This paper provides three distinct algorithms that synthesize a controller switching policy for the purpose of resource savings, while not debasing system performance significantly. To measure system performance, we adopted the Waserstein distance that quantifies uncertainty in a probability density function level. The cost function to minimize is then defined based on this Wasserstein metric with a resource utilization penalty. As an example, quadrotor dynamics with two controllers, high performing / high resource consuming and moderate performing / resource saving controllers, is presented. The efficiency and usefulness of the proposed methods are validated in this example.

Optimal Controller Switching for Resource-constrained Dynamical Systems Academic Article