Quantum Cooperative Robotics and Autonomy

The intersection of Quantum Technologies and Robotics Autonomy is explored in the present paper.The two areas are brought together in establishing an interdisciplinary interface that contributes to advancing the field of system autonomy,and pushes the engineering boundaries beyond the existing techniques.The present research adopts the experimental aspects of quantum entanglement and quantum cryptography,and integrates these established quantum capabilities into distributed robotic platforms,to explore the possibility of achieving increased autonomy for the control of multi-agent robotic systems engaged in cooperative tasks.Experimental quantum capabilities are realized by producing single photons(using spontaneous parametric down-conversion process),polarization of photons,detecting vertical and horizontal polarizations,and single photon detecting/counting.Specifically,such quantum aspects are implemented on network of classical agents,i.e.,classical aerial and ground robots/unmanned systems.With respect to classical systems for robotic applications,leveraging quantum technology is expected to lead to guaranteed security,very fast control and communication,and unparalleled quantum capabilities such as entanglement and quantum superposition that will enable novel applications.

Quantum Entanglement and Cryptography for Automation and Control of Dynamic Systems

This paper addresses the application of quantum entanglement and cryptography for automation and control of dynamic systems.A dynamic system is a system where the rates of changes of its state variables are not negligible.Quantum entanglement is realized by the Spontaneous Parametric Down-conversion process.Two entangled autonomous systems exhibit correlated behavior without any classical communication in between them due to the quantum entanglement phenomenon.Specifically,the behavior of a system,Bob,at a distance,is correlated with a corresponding system,Alice.In an automation scenario,the"Bob Robot"is entangled with the"Alice Robot"in performing autonomous tasks without any classical connection between them.Quantum cryptography is a capability that allows guaranteed security.Such capabilities can be implemented in control of autonomous mechanical systems where,for instance,an"Alice Autonomous System"can control a"Bob Autonomous System"for applications of automation and robotics.The applications of quantum technologies to mechanical systems,at a scale larger than the atomistic scale,for control and automation,is a novel contribution of this paper.Notably,the feedback control transfer function of an integrated classical dynamic system and a quantum state is proposed.

Time-Critical Tasks Implementation in MEC Based Multi-Robot Cooperation Systems

Mobile edge computing(MEC) deployment in a multi-robot cooperation(MRC) system is an effective way to accomplish the tasks in terms of energy consumption and implementation latency. However, the computation and communication resources need to be considered jointly to fully exploit the advantages brought by the MEC technology. In this paper, the scenario where multi robots cooperate to accomplish the time-critical tasks is studied, where an intelligent master robot(MR) acts as an edge server to provide services to multiple slave robots(SRs) and the SRs are responsible for the environment sensing and data collection. To save energy and prolong the function time of the system, two schemes are proposed to optimize the computation and communication resources, respectively. In the first scheme, the energy consumption of SRs is minimized and balanced while guaranteeing that the tasks are accomplished under a time constraint. In the second scheme, not only the energy consumption, but also the remaining energies of the SRs are considered to enhance the robustness of the system. Through the analysis and numerical simulations, we demonstrate that even though the first policy may guarantee the minimization on the total SRs’ energy consumption, the function time of MRC system by the second scheme is longer than that by the first one.

Fault tolerant control for a robot collaborative system

A new fault-tolerant control scheme is proposed for a nonlinear collaborative system that contains two robot subsystems. When fault occurs in one subsystem, the fault-free subsystem is used to compensate the fault influence of the faulty one on the whole collaborative system. When the faulty subsystem could not repair itself or the repair process needs a long time, the controller of the fault-free subsystem is reconfigured using the fault diagnosis information and other measured infor- mation, leading to the fault tolerant control of the robot collaborative system. Simulations of fault tolerant control for the robot collaborative system show the effectiveness of the proposed method.

OPTIMAL DYNAMIC LOAD DISTRIBUTION OF MULTIPLE COOPERATING ROBOT MANIPULATORS

For the situation of multiple cooperating manipulators handling a single object,an equilibrium equation is presented in which the manipulator dynamics and control forces/torques are taken into account,and a expression is derived to allow the optimal dynamic load distribution of the combined system can be made.

Innovation Shapes a Better Futur

In the past few years China has consistently and increasingly encouraged innovation,making great headway in such sectors as heavy equipment manufacturing,high-speed rail,biopharmaceuticals,new energy and robotics.Innovation has become an important engine boosting economic and social development in China.

New advances in complex motion control for single robot systems and multi-agent systems

CHEN Jie,email：chenjie@bit.edu.cn