Density Stabilization Strategies for Nonholonomic Agents on Compact Manifolds

Abstract

In this article, we consider the problem of stabilizing stochastic processes, which are constrained to a bounded Euclidean domain or a compact smooth manifold, to a given target probability density. Most existing works on modeling and control of robotic swarms that use PDE models assume that the robots' dynamics are holonomic, and hence, the associated stochastic processes have generators that are elliptic. We relax this assumption on the ellipticity of the generator of the stochastic processes, and consider the more practical case of the stabilization problem for a swarm of agents whose dynamics are given by a controllable driftless control-affine system. We construct state-feedback control laws that exponentially stabilize a swarm of nonholonomic agents to a target probability density that is sufficiently regular. State-feedback laws can stabilize a swarm only to target probability densities that are positive everywhere. To stabilize the swarm to probability densities that possibly have disconnected supports, we introduce a semilinear PDE model of a collection of interacting agents governed by a hybrid switching diffusion process. The interaction between the agents is modeled using a (mean-field) feedback law that is a function of the local density of the swarm, with the switching parameters as the control inputs. We show that the semilinear PDE system is globally asymptotically stable about the given target probability density. The stabilization strategies are verified without inter-agent interactions is verified numerically for agents that evolve according to the Brockett integrator and a nonholonomic system on the special orthogonal group of 3-dimensional rotations $SO(3)$. The stabilization strategy with inter-agent interactions is verified numerically for agents that evolve according to the Brockett integrator and a holonomic system on the sphere $S^2$.