Special Issue "Feasible, Robust and Reliable Automation and Control for Autonomous Systems"

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Systems & Control Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 October 2021.

Special Issue Editors

Dr. Umar Zakir Abdul Hamid
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Sensible 4, 02650 Espoo, Finland
Interests: advanced sriver assistance systems (ADAS); guidance, navigation & control for autonomous vehicle (GNC); motion, mission & path planning; risk assessment; collision avoidance; nonlinear optimal control; and model-based simulations
Prof. Dr. Argyrios Zolotas
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Centre for Autonomous and Cyber-Physical Systems, SATM, Cranfield University, Bedford MK43 0AL, UK
Interests: autonomous systems; mechatronics & advanced controls; vehicle health management
Assist. Prof. Dr. Chuan Hu
E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, AK 99775, USA
Interests: decision-making; motion planning and control of autonomous vehicles; human-vehicle interaction; trust dynamics; shared control; ADAS; dynamics and control; state and parameter estimations; mechatronics

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The past few decades have seen a rapid development towards autonomous systems. Increasing computational power ability and advances in new computing devices nowadays allow for feasible real-time implementation of autonomous systems. This has been further supported by large scale research in autonomous systems applications, including (but not limited) ground, aerial, maritime vehicles, mobile robotics. Different to automated systems, an autonomous system employs situational awareness information, via perception modules, used by the (normally) multi-layer control strategy to command the effectors driving the system. Given that the real world consists of dynamic and varied conditions environment, a reliable control strategy for autonomous systems should offer a safe, reliable, robust solution. Thus, in this proposed special issue on ‘Feasible, Robust and Reliable Automation and Control for Autonomous Systems’, the aim is to have wider dissemination of the control strategy topics for multiple types autonomous systems not constrained to a single platform. The special issue aims to highlight current research in the control field for autonomous systems, as well as showcasing the state-of-the-art control strategy approaches for the autonomous platforms. We strongly believe this special issue call will strongly appeal to control systems related researchers in applications typified in the fields of ground, aerial, maritime vehicles and robotics. Thus, this special issue aims to reflect on the most recent progress of control strategy for autonomous platforms, where the potential topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Control System Design for Autonomous Systems (Road Vehicles, Mobile Robots, Autonomous Surface Vehicles, Autonomous VTOL, Autonomous Machinery).
  • Vehicle and Mobile Robotics Automation
  • Robustness Analysis of Control Strategy Performance of Autonomous Systems
  • Kinematics, Dynamics and Model Nonlinearity effects to the controller performance of the Autonomous Systems
  • Path, trajectory and motion tracking performance of control strategy for autonomous systems in varied conditions
  • Real-time comparisons of controller performances for Autonomous Systems
  • Stability analysis of the controller performance for autonomous systems
  • Gain analysis of the control strategy for autonomous systems
  • Performance Assessment methods for control system performance of autonomous systems
  • Real-Time Validation of multi-objective dynamic Control Strategy Performance of an autonomous system
  • State estimation for autonomous system control strategy
  • Disturbances for autonomous platforms control systems
  • Control strategies for autonomous platforms in uncertain environments
  • Optimal and nonlinear control strategy for autonomous systems such as Model Predictive Control, H-infinity, Sliding Mode Control and Linear-quadratic control.
  • High-level and low-level controller design and implementation for autonomous systems.
  • Control Systems for Robotics Automation
Dr. Umar Zakir Abdul Hamid
Prof. Dr. Argyrios Zolotas
Assist. Prof. Dr. Chuan Hu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • Control Strategy for Autonomous Systems
  • Control Systems for Autonomous Robots
  • Control Systems for Autonomous Vehicles
  • Control Systems for Autonomous VTOL
  • Performance Assessment for Control Systems
  • Robustness and Stability for Control Systems
  • Nonlinear systems
  • Multi-objectives control
  • Autonomous control systems for uncertain environments
  • Control strategy design, implementation and validation for autonomous robots’ platforms

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

Article
Integrated Comfort-Adaptive Cruise and Semi-Active Suspension Control for an Autonomous Vehicle: An LPV Approach
Electronics 2021, 10(7), 813; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10070813 - 30 Mar 2021
Viewed by 615
Abstract
This paper presents an integrated linear parameter-varying (LPV) control approach of an autonomous vehicle with an objective to guarantee driving comfort, consisting of cruise and semi-active suspension control. First, the vehicle longitudinal and vertical dynamics (equipped with a semi-active suspension system) are presented [...] Read more.
This paper presents an integrated linear parameter-varying (LPV) control approach of an autonomous vehicle with an objective to guarantee driving comfort, consisting of cruise and semi-active suspension control. First, the vehicle longitudinal and vertical dynamics (equipped with a semi-active suspension system) are presented and written into LPV state-space representations. The reference speed is calculated online from the estimated road type and the desired comfort level (characterized by the frequency weighted vertical acceleration defined in the ISO 2631 norm) using precomputed polynomial functions. Then, concerning cruise control, an LPV H2 controller using a linear matrix inequality (LMI) based polytopic approach combined with the compensation of the estimated disturbance forces is developed to track the comfort-oriented reference speed. To further enhance passengers’ comfort, a decentralized LPV H2 controller for the semi-active suspension system is proposed, minimizing the effect of the road profile variations. The interaction with cruise control is achieved by the vehicle’s actual speed being a scheduling parameter for suspension control. To assess the strategy’s performance, simulations are conducted using a realistic nonlinear vehicle model validated from experimental data. The simulation results demonstrate the proposed approach’s capability to improve driving comfort. Full article
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Article
A Generic Interface Enabling Combinations of State-of-the-Art Path Planning and Tracking Algorithms
Electronics 2021, 10(7), 788; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10070788 - 26 Mar 2021
Viewed by 493
Abstract
In the development of Level 4 automated driving functions, very specific, but diverse, requirements with respect to the operational design domain have to be considered. In order to accelerate this development, it is advantageous to combine dedicated state-of-the-art software components, as building blocks [...] Read more.
In the development of Level 4 automated driving functions, very specific, but diverse, requirements with respect to the operational design domain have to be considered. In order to accelerate this development, it is advantageous to combine dedicated state-of-the-art software components, as building blocks in modular automated driving function architectures, instead of developing special solutions from scratch. However, e.g., in local motion planning and control, the combination of components is still limited in practice, due to necessary interface alignments, which might yield sub-optimal solutions and additional development overhead. The application of generic interfaces, which manage the data transfer between the software components, has the potential to avoid these drawbacks and hence, to further boost this development approach. This publication contributes such a generic interface concept between the local path planning and path tracking systems. The crucial point is a generalization of the lateral tracking error computation, based on an introduced error classification. It substantiates the integration of an internal reference path representation into the interface, to resolve the component interdependencies. The resulting, proposed interface enables arbitrary combinations of components from a comprehensive set of state-of-the-art path planning and tracking algorithms. Two interface implementations are finally applied in an exemplary automated driving function assembly task. Full article
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Article
High Velocity Lane Keeping Control Method Based on the Non-Smooth Finite-Time Control for Electric Vehicle Driven by Four Wheels Independently
Electronics 2021, 10(6), 760; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10060760 - 23 Mar 2021
Viewed by 509
Abstract
In order to improve the output response and robustness of the lane keeping controller for the electric vehicle driven by four wheels independently (EV-DFWI), the article proposes a lane keeping controller based on the non-smooth finite-time (NoS-FT) control method. Firstly, a lane keeping [...] Read more.
In order to improve the output response and robustness of the lane keeping controller for the electric vehicle driven by four wheels independently (EV-DFWI), the article proposes a lane keeping controller based on the non-smooth finite-time (NoS-FT) control method. Firstly, a lane keeping control (LKC) model was built for the EV-DFWI. Secondly, a tracking method and error weight superposition method to track error computing for the lane keeping control based on the LKC model are proposed according to the lane line information. Thirdly, a NoS-FT controller was constructed for lane keeping. It is proved that the NoS-FT controller can stabilize the system by the direct Lyapunov method. Finally, the simulations were carried out to verify that the NoS-FT controller can keep the vehicle running in the desired lane with the straight road, constant curvature road, varied curvature road, and S-bend road. The simulation results show that the NoS-FT controller has better effectiveness than the PID controller. The contributions of this article are that two kinds of tracking error computing methods of lane keeping control are proposed to deal with different conditions, and a Non-FT lane keeping controller is designed to keep the EV-DFWI running in the desired lane suffering external disturbances. Full article
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Article
On-Line Learning and Updating Unmanned Tracked Vehicle Dynamics
Electronics 2021, 10(2), 187; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics10020187 - 15 Jan 2021
Viewed by 1051
Abstract
Increasing levels of autonomy impose more pronounced performance requirements for unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). Presence of model uncertainties significantly reduces a ground vehicle performance when the vehicle is traversing an unknown terrain or the vehicle inertial parameters vary due to a mission schedule [...] Read more.
Increasing levels of autonomy impose more pronounced performance requirements for unmanned ground vehicles (UGV). Presence of model uncertainties significantly reduces a ground vehicle performance when the vehicle is traversing an unknown terrain or the vehicle inertial parameters vary due to a mission schedule or external disturbances. A comprehensive mathematical model of a skid steering tracked vehicle is presented in this paper and used to design a control law. Analysis of the controller under model uncertainties in inertial parameters and in the vehicle-terrain interaction revealed undesirable behavior, such as controller divergence and offset from the desired trajectory. A compound identification scheme utilizing an exponential forgetting recursive least square, generalized Newton–Raphson (NR), and Unscented Kalman Filter methods is proposed to estimate the model parameters, such as the vehicle mass and inertia, as well as parameters of the vehicle-terrain interaction, such as slip, resistance coefficients, cohesion, and shear deformation modulus on-line. The proposed identification scheme facilitates adaptive capability for the control system, improves tracking performance and contributes to an adaptive path and trajectory planning framework, which is essential for future autonomous ground vehicle missions. Full article
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Article
Facilitating Autonomous Systems with AI-Based Fault Tolerance and Computational Resource Economy
Electronics 2020, 9(5), 788; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9050788 - 11 May 2020
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 1208
Abstract
Proposed is the facilitation of fault-tolerant capability in autonomous systems with particular consideration of low computational complexity and system interface devices (sensor/actuator) performance. Traditionally model-based fault-tolerant/detection units for multiple sensor faults in automation require a bank of estimators, normally Kalman-based ones. An AI-based [...] Read more.
Proposed is the facilitation of fault-tolerant capability in autonomous systems with particular consideration of low computational complexity and system interface devices (sensor/actuator) performance. Traditionally model-based fault-tolerant/detection units for multiple sensor faults in automation require a bank of estimators, normally Kalman-based ones. An AI-based control framework enabling low computational power fault tolerance is presented. Contrary to the bank-of-estimators approach, the proposed framework exhibits a single unit for multiple actuator/sensor fault detection. The efficacy of the proposed scheme is shown via rigorous analysis for several sensor fault scenarios for an electro-magnetic suspension testbed. Full article
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Article
Adaptive Single Neuron Anti-Windup PID Controller Based on the Extended Kalman Filter Algorithm
Electronics 2020, 9(4), 636; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics9040636 - 11 Apr 2020
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1480
Abstract
In this paper, an adaptive single neuron Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controller based on the extended Kalman filter (EKF) training algorithm is proposed. The use of EKF training allows online training with faster learning and convergence speeds than backpropagation training method. Moreover, the propose adaptive [...] Read more.
In this paper, an adaptive single neuron Proportional–Integral–Derivative (PID) controller based on the extended Kalman filter (EKF) training algorithm is proposed. The use of EKF training allows online training with faster learning and convergence speeds than backpropagation training method. Moreover, the propose adaptive PID approach includes a back-calculation anti-windup scheme to deal with windup effects, which is a common problem in PID controllers. The performance of the proposed approach is shown by presenting both simulation and experimental tests, giving results that are comparable to similar and more complex implementations. Tests are performed for a four wheeled omnidirectional mobile robot. Tests show the superiority of the proposed adaptive PID controller over the conventional PID and other adaptive neural PID approaches. Experimental tests are performed on a KUKA® Youbot® omnidirectional platform. Full article
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