Organic Nanoparticles: Preparation,Self‐Assembly,and Properties

The strong tendency of organic nanoparticles to rapidly self‐assemble into highly aligned superlattices at room temperature when solution‐cast from dispersions or spray‐coated directly onto various substrates is described. The nanoparticle dispersions are stable for years. The novel precipitation process used is believed to result in molecular distances and alignments in the nanoparticles that are not normally possible. Functional organic light‐emitting diodes (OLEDs)—which have the same host–dopant emissive‐material composition—with process‐tunable electroluminescence have been built with these nanoparticles, indicating the presence of novel nanostructures. For example, only changing the conditions of the precipitation process changes the OLED emission from green light to yellow.     

Stochastic Optimal Design for Unknown Linear Discrete‐Time System Zero‐Sum Games in Input‐Output form Under Communication Constraints

In this paper, stochastic optimal strategy for unknown linear discrete‐time system quadratic zero‐sum games in input‐output form with communication imperfections such as network‐induced delays and packet losses, otherwise referred to as networked control system (NCS) zero‐sum games, relating to the H_∞ optimal control problem is solved in a forward‐in‐time manner. First, the linear discrete‐time zero sum state space representation is transformed into a linear NCS in the state space form after incorporating random delays and packet losses and then into the input‐output form. Subsequently, the stochastic optimal approach, referred to as adaptive dynamic programming (ADP), is introduced which estimates the cost or value function to solve the infinite horizon optimal regulation of unknown linear NCS quadratic zero‐sum games in the presence of communication imperfections. The optimal control and worst case disturbance inputs are derived based on the estimated value function in the absence of state measurements. An update law for tuning the unknown parameters of the value function estimator is derived and Lyapunov theory is used to show that all signals are asymptotically stable (AS) and that the estimated control and disturbance signals converge to optimal control and worst case disturbances, respectively. Simulation results are included to verify the theoretical claims.     

Editorial: Special issue on approximate dynamic programming and reinforcement learning

We are extremely pleased to present this special issue of the Journal of Control Theory and Applications.Approximate dynamic programming (ADP) is a general and effective approach for solving optimal control and estimation problems by adapting to uncertain environments over time.ADP optimizes the sensing objectives accrued over a future time interval with respect to an adaptive control law,conditioned on prior knowledge of the system,its state,and uncertainties.A numerical search over the present value of the control minimizes a Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation providing a basis for real-time,approximate optimal control.     

Asymptotic Adaptive Neural Network Tracking Control of Nonholonomic Mobile Robot Formations

In this paper, asymptotically stable control laws are developed for leader–follower based formation control using backstepping in order to accommodate the dynamics of the robots and the formation. First, a kinematic controller is developed around control strategies for single mobile robots and the idea of virtual leaders. The virtual leader is replaced with a physical mobile robot leader, and an auxiliary velocity control law is developed in order to prove the global asymptotic stability of the followers which in turn allows the local asymptotic stability of the entire formation. A novel approach is taken in the development of the dynamical controller such that the torque control inputs for the follower robots include the dynamics of the follower robot as well as the dynamics of its leader, and two cases are considered—the case when the robot dynamics are known and the case when they are unknown. In the first case, a robust adaptive control term is utilized to account for unmodeled dynamics. For the latter, a robust adaptive term is augmented with a NN control law to achieve asymptotic tracking performance in contrast with most NN controllers where a bounded tracking error result is shown. Additionally, the NN approximation error is assumed to be a function of tracking errors instead of a constant upper bound, which is commonly found in the literature. The stability of the follower robots as well as the entire formation is demonstrated in each case using Lyapunov methods and numerical results are provided.     

Decentralized fault tolerant control of a class of nonlinear interconnected systems

In this paper, a novel decentralized fault tolerant controller (DFTC) is proposed for interconnected nonlinear continuous-time systems by using local subsystem state vector alone in contrast with traditional distributed fault tolerant controllers or fault accommodation schemes where the measured or the estimated state vector of the overall system is needed. The proposed decentralized controller uses local state and input vectors and minimizes the fault effects on all the subsystems. The DFTC in each subsystem includes a traditional controller term and a neural network based online approximator term which is used to deal with the unknown parts of the system dynamics, such as fault and interconnection terms. The stability of the overall system with the proposed DFTC is investigated by using Lyapunov approach and the boundedness of all signals is guaranteed in the presence of a fault. Therefore, the proposed controller enables the system to continue its normal operation after the occurrence of a fault, as long as it does not cause failure or break down of a component. Although the decentralized fault tolerant controller is designed mainly for large-scale systems where continuous transmissions between subsystems is not possible, it can also be applied to small-scale systems where sensor measurements are available for use in all subsystems. Finally the proposed methods are verified and compared in simulation environment.     

Charge growth, dispersion in europium manganite (EuMnO3−δ) ceramics revealed using opto-impedance probe

In this preliminary report, we present the impedance characteristics of poly-crystalline europium manganite, a promising colossal magneto resistance (CMR) system investigated under optical (∼5 eV) and magnetic (0.1 T) perturbations yielding some clues on the charge build-up and dispersion processes. This may possibly be resulting from switching between ferromagnetic and anti-ferromagnetic phases through a charge transfer transition mediated process centering Mn^3+/4+ 3d spins thereby meriting a more detailed study correlating with magnetic measurements.     

Reinforcement learning-based output feedback control of nonlinear systems with input constraints.

A novel neural network (NN)-based output feedback controller with magnitude constraints is designed to deliver a desired tracking performance for a class of multi-input and multi-output (MIMO) strict feedback nonlinear discrete-time systems. Reinforcement learning is proposed for the output feedback controller, which uses three NNs: 1) an NN observer to estimate the system states with the input-output data, 2) a critic NN to approximate certain strategic utility function, and 3) an action NN to minimize both the strategic utility function and the unknown dynamics estimation errors. Using the Lyapunov approach, the uniformly ultimate boundedness (UUB) of the state estimation errors, the tracking errors and weight estimates is shown.