Michael Zavlanos

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · May 1, 2019 This paper proposes a new optimal control synthesis algorithm for multirobot systems under global temporal logic tasks. Existing planning approaches under global temporal goals rely on graph search techniques applied to a product automaton constructed amon ... Full text Cite

Risk-averse access point selection in wireless communication networks

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems · March 1, 2019 This paper considers the problem of selecting the optimal set of access points and routing decisions in wireless communication networks. We consider networks that are subject to uncertainty in the wireless channel, for example, due to multipath fading effe ... Full text Cite

Distributed Hierarchical Control for State Estimation with Robotic Sensor Networks

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems · December 1, 2018 This paper addresses active state estimation with a team of robotic sensors. The states to be estimated are represented by spatially distributed, uncorrelated, stationary vectors. Given a prior belief on the geographic locations of the states, we cluster t ... Full text Cite

Probabilistic Motion Planning Under Temporal Tasks and Soft Constraints

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · December 1, 2018 This paper studies motion planning of a mobile robot under uncertainty. The control objective is to synthesize a finite-memory control policy, such that a high-level task specified as a linear temporal logic formula is satisfied with a desired high probabi ... Full text Cite

Approximate projection methods for decentralized optimization with functional constraints

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · October 1, 2018 We consider distributed convex optimization problems that involve a separable objective function and nontrivial functional constraints, such as linear matrix inequalities. We propose a decentralized and computationally inexpensive algorithm, which is based ... Full text Cite

Multirobot Data Gathering under Buffer Constraints and Intermittent Communication

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Robotics · August 1, 2018 We consider a team of heterogeneous robots, which are deployed within a common workspace to gather different types of data. The robots have different roles due to different capabilities: some gather data from the workspace (source robots) and others receiv ... Full text Cite

Complexity Certification of a Distributed Augmented Lagrangian Method

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · March 1, 2018 In this paper, we present complexity certification results for a distributed augmented Lagrangian (AL) algorithm used to solve convex optimization problems involving globally coupled linear constraints. Our method relies on the accelerated distributed AL ( ... Full text Cite

Distributed Active State Estimation with User-Specified Accuracy

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · February 1, 2018 In this paper, we address the problem of controlling a network of mobile sensors so that a set of hidden states are estimated up to a user-specified accuracy. The sensors take measurements and fuse them online using an information consensus filter (ICF). A ... Full text Cite

Controlling a robotic stereo camera under image quantization noise

Journal article International Journal of Robotics Research · October 1, 2017 In this paper, we address the problem of controlling a mobile stereo camera under image quantization noise. Assuming that a pair of images of a set of targets is available, the camera moves through a sequence of Next-Best-Views (NBVs), i.e. a sequence of v ... Full text Cite

Distributed network design for laplacian eigenvalue placement

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems · September 1, 2017 We propose a distributed iterative algorithm in which a group of n autonomous agents self-organize the structure of their communication network in order to control the network's Laplacian eigenvalue spectrum. We assume that every agent has only access to a ... Full text Cite

On the Convergence of a Distributed Augmented Lagrangian Method for Nonconvex Optimization

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · September 1, 2017 In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for optimization problems that involve a separable, possibly nonconvex objective function subject to convex local constraints and linear coupling constraints. The method is based on the accelerated distribu ... Full text Cite

Distributed Intermittent Connectivity Control of Mobile Robot Networks

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · July 1, 2017 In this paper we develop an intermittent communication framework for teams of mobile robots. Robots move along the edges of a mobility graph and communicate only when they meet at the vertices of this graph, giving rise to a dynamic communication network. ... Full text Cite

Distributed scheduling of network connectivity using mobile access point robots

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Robotics · December 1, 2016 In this paper, we consider scenarios where mobility can be exploited to enable reliable communications in wireless networks with scarce resources that are unable to concurrently service their nodes. Specifically, we consider cases where a team of robots op ... Full text Cite

Distributed Formation Stabilization Using Relative Position Measurements in Local Coordinates

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · December 1, 2016 In this paper, we present a novel distributed method to stabilize a set of agents moving in a two dimensional environment to a desired rigid formation. In our approach, each agent computes its control input using the relative positions of a set of formatio ... Full text Cite

A Distributed Algorithm for Convex Constrained Optimization under Noise

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · September 1, 2016 We present a novel distributed algorithm for convex constrained optimization problems that are subject to noise corruption and uncertainties. The proposed scheme can be classified as a distributed stochastic approximation method, where a unique feature her ... Full text Cite

Global Planning for Multi-Robot Communication Networks in Complex Environments

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Robotics · August 17, 2016 © 2004-2012 IEEE. In this paper, we consider networks of mobile robots responsible for servicing a collection of tasks in complex environments, while ensuring end-to-end connectivity with a fixed infrastructure of access points. Tasks are associated with s ... Full text Cite

Distributed communication-aware coverage control by mobile sensor networks

Journal article Automatica · January 1, 2016 The purpose of this paper is to propose a distributed control scheme to maximize area coverage by a mobile robot network while ensuring reliable communication between the members of the team. The information that is generated at the sensors depends on the ... Full text Cite

An augmented Lagrangian method for distributed optimization

Journal article Mathematical Programming · August 24, 2015 We propose a novel distributed method for convex optimization problems with a certain separability structure. The method is based on the augmented Lagrangian framework. We analyze its convergence and provide an application to two network models, as well as ... Full text Cite

Coordinate-free formation stabilization based on relative position measurements

Journal article Automatica · July 1, 2015 This paper presents a method to stabilize a group of agents moving in a two-dimensional space to a desired rigid geometric configuration. A common approach is to use information of relative interagent position vectors to carry out this specific control tas ... Full text Cite

Distributed cooperative beamforming in multi-source multi-destination clustered systems

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing · December 1, 2014 We consider the scenario of a multi-cluster network, in which each cluster contains multiple single-antenna source destination pairs that communicate simultaneously over the same channel. The communications are supported by cooperating amplify-and-forward ... Full text Cite

Towards mobile microrobot swarms for additive micromanufacturing

Journal article International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems · September 19, 2014 In this paper, a novel approach to achieving the independent control of multiple magnetic microrobots is presented. The approach utilizes a specialized substrate consisting of a fine grid of planar, MEMS-fabricated micro coils of the same size as the micro ... Full text Cite

Controlling the relative agent motion in multi-agent formation stabilization

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · January 1, 2014 In this technical note, we propose a novel technique to control the relative motion of multiple mobile agents as they stabilize to a desired configuration. In particular, we focus on the agents' relative velocities and the rate of change of their pairwise ... Full text Cite

Distributed stochastic multicommodity flow optimization

Journal article 2013 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing Globalsip 2013 Proceedings · December 1, 2013 In this paper we are concerned with a class of stochastic multicommodity network flow problems, the so called capacity expansion planning problems. We consider a two-stage stochastic optimization formulation that incorporates uncertainty in the problem par ... Full text Cite

A hybrid control approach to the Next-Best-View problem using stereo vision

Journal article Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation · November 14, 2013 In this paper, we consider the problem of precisely localizing a group of stationary targets using a single stereo camera mounted on a mobile robot. In particular, assuming that at least one pair of stereo images of the targets is available, we seek to det ... Full text Cite

Mobile jammers for secrecy rate maximization in cooperative networks

Journal article ICASSP IEEE International Conference on Acoustics Speech and Signal Processing Proceedings · October 18, 2013 We consider a source (Alice) trying to communicate with a destination (Bob), in a way that an unauthorized node (Eve) cannot infer, based on her observations, the information that is being transmitted. The communication is assisted by multiple multi-antenn ... Full text Cite

Network integrity in mobile robotic networks

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · January 7, 2013 Most coordinated tasks performed by teams of mobile robots require reliable communications between team members. Therefore, task accomplishment requires that robots navigate their environment with their collective movement restricted to formations that gua ... Full text Cite

Hybrid control for mobile target localization with stereo vision

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2013 In this paper, we control image collection for a mobile stereo camera that is actively localizing a group of mobile targets. In particular, assuming that at least one pair of stereo images of the targets is available, we propose a novel approach to control ... Full text Cite

A distributed algorithm for cooperative relay beamforming

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2013 We consider the problem of cooperative beamforming in relay networks. Assuming knowledge of the second-order statistics of channel state information (CSI), the optimal beamforming weights are determined so that the total transmitted power at the relays is ... Full text Cite

Controlling groups of mobile beamformers

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2012 In this paper, we address the problem of controlling networks of wireless mobile nodes to propagate information over large distances, while minimizing power consumption and maintaining desired Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees. For this, we rely on colla ... Full text Cite

Approximate augmented lagrangians for distributed network optimization

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2012 In this paper, we propose a distributed algorithm for optimal routing in wireless multi-hop networks. We build our approach on a recently proposed model for stochastic routing, whereby each node selects a neighbor to forward a packet according to a given p ... Full text Cite

Distributed control of mobility & routing in networks of robots

Journal article IEEE Workshop on Signal Processing Advances in Wireless Communications Spawc · September 16, 2011 Most coordinated tasks performed by teams of mobile robots, require reliable communications between the members of the team. Therefore, task accomplishment requires that robots navigate their environment with their collective movement restricted to formati ... Full text Cite

Inferring stable genetic networks from steady-state data

Journal article Automatica · June 1, 2011 Gene regulatory networks capture the interactions between genes and other cell substances, resulting from the fundamental biological process of transcription and translation. In some applications, the topology of the regulatory network is not known, and ha ... Full text Cite

Graph-theoretic connectivity control of mobile robot networks

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE · January 1, 2011 In this paper, we provide a theoretical framework for controlling graph connectivity in mobile robot networks. We discuss proximity-based communication models composed of disk-based or uniformly-fading-signal-strength communication links. A graph-theoretic ... Full text Cite

Robust flux balance analysis of metabolic networks

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2011 Metabolic networks describe the set of biochemical reactions and regulatory interactions of metabolism that govern the phenotypical properties of a cell. Analysis of such networks is critical not only to promote biological knowledge, but also in drug disco ... Full text Cite

A framework for integrating mobility and routing in mobile communication networks

Journal article Conference Record Asilomar Conference on Signals Systems and Computers · January 1, 2011 Most coordinated tasks performed by teams of mobile robots, require reliable communications between the members of the team. Therefore, task accomplishment requires that robots navigate their environment with their collective movement restricted to formati ... Full text Cite

Spectral control of mobile robot networks

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2011 The eigenvalue spectrum of the adjacency matrix of a network is closely related to the behavior of many dynamical processes run over the network. In the field of robotics, this spectrum has important implications in many problems that require some form of ... Full text Cite

Mobility & routing control in networks of robots

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2010 Most coordinated tasks performed by teams of mobile robots, require reliable communications between the members of the team. Therefore, task accomplishment requires that robots navigate their environment with their collective movement restricted to formati ... Full text Cite

Distributed control of the Laplacian spectral moments of a network

Journal article Proceedings of the 2010 American Control Conference ACC 2010 · January 1, 2010 It is well-known that the eigenvalue spectrum of the Laplacian matrix of a network contains valuable information about the network structure and the behavior of many dynamical processes run on it. In this paper, we propose a fully decentralized algorithm t ... Full text Cite

Synchronous rendezvous of very-low-range wireless agents

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2010 In this paper, we address the problem of temporal synchronization of a team of mobile agents on a set of rendezvous points defined by the nodes of a bipartite network. In particular, we assume very-low-range (VLR) wireless agents that travel along the edge ... Full text Cite

Hybrid control for connectivity preserving flocking

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control · December 1, 2009 In this technical note, we address the combined problem of motion and network topology control in a group of mobile agents with common objective the flocking behavior of the group. Instead of assuming network connectivity, we enforce it by means ofdistribu ... Full text Cite

Maintaining Connectivity in Mobile Robot Networks

Journal article Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics · December 1, 2009 While there has been significant progress in recent years in the study of estimation and control of dynamic network graphs, limited attention has been paid to the experimental validation and verification of such algorithms on distributed teams of robots. I ... Full text Cite

Genetic network identification using convex programming.

Journal article IET systems biology · May 2009 Gene regulatory networks capture interactions between genes and other cell substances, resulting in various models for the fundamental biological process of transcription and translation. The expression levels of the genes are typically measured as mRNA co ... Full text Cite

Resource allocation for signal detection with active sensors

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2009 We consider the problem of determining the existence of known constant signals over a set of sites, given noisy measurements obtained by a team of active sensors that can switch between different sites. Since the quality of detection depends on the time th ... Full text Cite

A distributed dynamical scheme for fastest mixing markov chains

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2009 This paper introduces the problem of determining through distributed consensus the fastest mixing Markov chain with a desired sparsity pattern. In contrast to the centralized optimization-based problem formulation, we develop a novel distributed relaxation ... Full text Cite

Distributed connectivity control of mobile networks

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Robotics · December 10, 2008 Control of mobile networks raises fundamental and novel problems in controlling the structure of the resulting dynamic graphs. In particular, in applications involving mobile sensor networks and multiagent systems, a great new challenge is the development ... Full text Cite

A dynamical systems approach to weighted graph matching

Journal article Automatica · October 9, 2008 Graph matching is a fundamental problem that arises frequently in the areas of distributed control, computer vision, and facility allocation. In this paper, we consider the optimal graph matching problem for weighted graphs, which is computationally challe ... Full text Cite

Distributed multi-robot task assignment and formation control

Journal article Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation · September 18, 2008 Distributed task assignment for multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in control theory and robotics. A new challenge is the development of distributed algorithms that dynamically assign tasks to multiple agents, not relying on a priori ass ... Full text Cite

Dynamic assignment in distributed motion planning with local coordination

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Robotics · February 1, 2008 Distributed motion planning of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in control theory and robotics. In particular, in applications such as coverage by mobile sensor networks or multiple target tracking, a great new challenge is the develop ... Full text Cite

A distributed auction algorithm for the assignment problem

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2008 The assignment problem constitutes one of the fundamental problems in the context of linear programming. Besides its theoretical significance, its frequent appearance in the areas of distributed control and facility allocation, where the problems' size and ... Full text Cite

Distributed topology control of dynamic networks

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2008 In this paper, we present a distributed control framework for controlling the topology of dynamic multi-agent networks. Agents are equipped with local sensing and wireless communication capabilities, however, due to power constraints, they are required to ... Full text Cite

Identification of stable genetic networks using convex programming

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2008 Gene regulatory networks capture interactions between genes and other cell substances, resulting in various models for the fundamental biological process of transcription and translation. The expression levels of the genes are typically measured in mRNA co ... Full text Cite

Sensor-based dynamic assignment in distributed motion planning

Journal article Proceedings IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation · November 27, 2007 Distributed motion planning of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in control theory and robotics. Recently, one such great challenge has been the development of motion planning algorithms that dynamically assign targets or destinations t ... Full text Cite

Potential fields for maintaining connectivity of mobile networks

Journal article IEEE Transactions on Robotics · August 1, 2007 The control of mobile networks of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in controlling the structure of the resulting dynamic graphs. In this paper, we consider the problem of controlling a network of agents so that the resulting motion alw ... Full text Cite

Distributed formation control with permutation symmetries

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2007 In distributed control applications such as coverage or consensus by multiple mobile agents, a great new challenge is the development of motion algorithms that dynamically determine the positions of the agents in the formation using only local information. ... Full text Cite

Distributed connectivity control of mobile networks

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2007 Control of mobile networks raises fundamental and novel problems in controlling the structure of the resulting dynamic graphs. In particular, in applications involving mobile sensor networks and multi-agent systems, a great new challenge is the development ... Full text Cite

Flocking while preserving network connectivity

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2007 Coordinated motion of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in control theory and robotics. In particular, in applications such as consensus seeking or flocking by a group of mobile agents, a great new challenge is the development of robust ... Full text Cite

Dynamic assignment in distributed motion planning with limited information

Journal article Proceedings of the American Control Conference · January 1, 2007 Distributed motion planning of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in control theory and robotics. In this paper, we consider the problem of designing distributed motion algorithms that dynamically assign targets or destinations to multip ... Full text Cite

Distributed hybrid control for multiple-pursuer multiple-evader games

Journal article Lecture Notes in Computer Science Including Subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics · January 1, 2007 Multiple-pursuer multiple-evader games raise fundamental and novel problems in control theory and robotics. In this paper, we propose a distributed solution to this problem that simultaneously addresses the discrete assignment of pursuers to evaders as wel ... Full text Cite

A feedback stabilization and collision avoidance scheme for multiple independent non-point agents

Journal article Automatica · February 1, 2006 A navigation functions' based methodology, established in our previous work for centralized multiple robot navigation, is extended to address the problem of decentralized navigation. In contrast to the centralized case, each agent plans its actions without ... Full text Cite

A dynamical systems approach to weighted graph matching

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2006 Graph matching is a fundamental problem that arises frequently in the areas of distributed control, computer vision, and facility allocation. In this paper, we consider the optimal graph matching problem for weighted graphs, which is computationally challe ... Full text Cite

Controlling connectivity of dynamic graphs

Journal article Proceedings of the 44th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and the European Control Conference Cdc Ecc 05 · December 1, 2005 The control of mobile networks of multiple agents raises fundamental and novel problems in controlling the structure of the resulting dynamic graphs. In this paper, we consider the problem of controlling a network of agents so that the resulting motion alw ... Full text Cite

Decentralized Motion Control of Multiple Holonomic Agents under Input Constraints

Journal article Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control · January 1, 2003 The navigation function methodology, established in previous work for centralized multiple robot navigation, is extended for decentralized navigation with input constraints. In contrast to the centralized case, each agent plans its actions without knowing ... Full text Cite