Faculty Investigators   Research Personnel   Research Labs: HoTDeC Lab (MEB)  Internet Lab (CSL)  Robotics Lab (BI)             Distributed Scalable Java Operating System (DSJOS)   Bi-weekly seminar series   Presentations: Conference presentations Student poster presentations                     Publications   Related Courses and Outreach Activities   Related Sites                                 For more information please contact Prof. Basar

Overall Objectives: This research project deals with issues arising in controlling geographically distributed complex real-time systems over a heterogeneous communication network. It is aimed at developing the foundations of network-based control, from theory to applications. The overall objectives are: 1) The design, analysis, implementation, and performance characterization of hierarchical and heterogeneous distributed control algorithms, as well as the middleware involved in performing these tasks through hierarchical heterogeneous networks comprised of wired and wireless subnets. 2) The specification and implementation of network services and support required for the development and deployment of distributed control algorithms over hierarchical heterogeneous networks, and the demonstration of efficient and fault-tolerant remote control using such networks for a number of emerging commercial and scientific/engineering applications.   Control architectures for centralized, decentralized and distributed control schemes.   Potential Applications. Reliable network-based control algorithms and software will inevitably enable numerous applications with a critical control and coordination component. Some futuristic, but realistic, scenarios that are under consideration include clusters of networked satellites flying in complex low orbit formation,  freeways and highways in areas of high traffic congestion being fully automated and producing significant efficiency increases coordinated distributed control of traffic signals in metropolitan areas optimizing urban flow integrated approaches to air traffic control using networking producing optimized flight plans and safety sophisticated networked control strategies being employed to control the national power grid providing both cheaper and highly reliable power to the nation teams of surgeons remotely operating on patients functional airplanes remotely guided and landed when pilots are incapacitated full automation of stock market trading , capitalizing global information. Research Accomplishments.  Controlling distant tasks over networks will be undoubtedly at the heart of the technological revolution of this century. Before any real progress can take place, certain foundations need to be laid at the basic research level. Our research activity aims at that and has already registered substantial progress in this domain, contributing to both the science of network-based control as well as the underlying technology. We have developed new tools for robust distributed control under constraints imposed by data rate limitations, interaction, propagation delay, and information exchange, tools for fault diagnosis and fault-tolerant control, particularly failure detection and identification in large-scale distributed systems, robust adaptive algorithms for congestion control, along with pricing strategies for effective flow control and routing, representations of large state spaces for mobile control, and sensor-based navigation in cluttered environments, operating system services that enable the efficient implementation of resource managers for real-time applications, and particularly a new distributed Java operating system.        We have also made significant advances in building a testbed for remote control applications, with the centerpiece here being the HoTDeC - our multi-vehicle networked control testbed consisting of air-based vehicles as well as self-lifting hovercraft. In addition to the laboratory in the Mechanical Engineering Building (MEB) on campus which houses HoTDeC, we also have an Internet Laboratory in the Coordinated Science Laboratory, and the Robotics Laboratory located in the  Beckman Institute, which support the fundamental research carried out by our team.