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In this paper, we give a control approach to follow a trajectory for a Dubins car controlling the heading independently. The difficulty is that the Dubins car should have a heading corresponding to the argument of the vector speed of the vehicle. This non holonomic constraint can be relaxed thanks to a specific control which uses Lie brackets. We will show such a control will allow us, at least from a theoretical point of view, to control independently the moving position of the car and the heading., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures

In engineering, models are often used to represent the behavior of a system. Estimators are then needed to approximate the values of the model's parameters based on observations. This approximation implies a difference between the values predicted by the model and the observations that have been made. It creates an uncertainty that can lead to dangerous decision making. Interval analysis tools can be used to guarantee some properties of an estimator, even when the estimator itself doesn't rely on interval analysis (Adam, 2019) (Adam, 2015). This paper contributes to this dynamic by proposing an interval-based and guaranteed method to validate a nonlinear estimator. It is based on the Moore-Skelboe algorithm (van Emden, 2004). This method returns a guaranteed maximum error that the estimator will never exceed. We will show that we can guarantee properties even when working with non-guaranteed estimators such as neural networks., Comment: REC 2024, Oct 2024, Beijing, China

This paper proposes a Lyapunov based approach to control the rotation of a flat disk spinning in the space without external forces. The motion of the disk is governed by the Euler's rotation equation for spinning objects. The control is made through the inertia matrix of the disk., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures

Control and state estimation procedures need to be robust against imprecisely known parameters, uncertainty in initial conditions, and external disturbances. Interval methods and other set-based techniques form the basis for the implementation of powerful approaches that can be used to identify parameters of dynamic system models in the presence of the aforementioned types of uncertainty. Moreover, they are applicable to a verified feasibility and stability analysis of controllers and state estimators. In addition to these approaches which are typically used offline for analysis of system models designed with classical floating point procedures, interval and set-based methods have also been developed in recent years, which allow to directly solve the associated design tasks and to implement reliable techniques that are applicable online, i.e., during system operation. The latter approaches include set-based model predictive control, online parameter adaptation techniques for nonlinear variable-structure and backstepping controllers, interval observers, and fault diagnosis techniques. This paper provides an overview of the methodological background and reviews numerous practical applications for which interval and other set-valued approaches have been employed successfully.

This paper presents a method for determining the area explored by a line-sweep sensor during an area-covering mission in a two-dimensional plane. Accurate knowledge of the explored area is crucial for various applications in robotics, such as mapping, surveillance, and coverage optimization. The proposed method leverages the concept of coverage measure of the environment and its relation to the topological degree in the plane, to estimate the extent of the explored region. In addition, we extend the approach to uncertain coverage measure values using interval analysis. This last contribution allows for a guaranteed characterization of the explored area, essential considering the often critical character of area-covering missions. Finally, this paper also proposes a novel algorithm for computing the topological degree in the 2-dimensional plane, for all the points inside an area of interest, which differs from existing solutions that compute the topological degree for single points. The applicability of the method is evaluated through a real-world experiment.

This paper proposes a new interval-based contractor for nonlinear equations which is minimal when dealing with narrow boxes. The method is based on the centered form classically used by interval algorithms combined with a Gauss Jordan band diagonalization preconditioning. As an illustration in stability analysis, we propose to compute the set of all parameters of a characteristic function of a linear dynamical system which have at least one zero in the imaginary axis. Our approach is able compute a guaranteed and accurate enclosure of the solution set faster than existing approaches., Comment: 19 pages

This paper proposes an efficient contractor for the TDoA (Time Differential of Arrival) equation. The contractor is based on a minimal inclusion test which is built using the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker (KKT) conditions. An application related to the localization of sound sources using a TDoA technique is proposed., Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures

This paper proposes a minimal contractor and a minimal separator for an area delimited by an hyperbola of the plane. The task is facilitated using actions induced by the hyperoctahedral group of symmetries. An application related to the localization of an object using a TDoA (Time Differential of Arrival) technique is proposed., Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2305.10842

This paper proposes a minimal contractor and a minimal separator for an ellipse in the plane. The task is facilitated using actions induced by the hyperoctahedral group of symmetries. An application related to the localization of an object using multiple sonars is proposed., Comment: 16 pages and 11 figures

When implementing a non-continuous controller for a cyber-physical system, it may happen that the evolution of the closed-loop system is not anymore piecewise differentiable along the trajectory, mainly due to conditional statements inside the controller. This may lead to some unwanted chattering effects than may damage the system. This behavior is difficult to observe even in simulation. In this paper, we propose an interval approach to characterize the sliding surface which corresponds to the set of all states such that the state trajectory may jump indefinitely between two distinct behaviors. We show that the recent notion of thick sets will allows us to compute efficiently an outer approximation of the sliding surface of a given class of hybrid system taking into account all set-membership uncertainties. An application to the verification of the controller of a child swing is considered to illustrate the principle of the approach., Comment: In Proceedings SNR 2020, arXiv:2101.05256

In this paper, we propose a new approach to prove stability of non-linear discrete-time systems. After introducing the new concept of stability contractor, we show that the interval centred form plays a fundamental role in this context and makes it possible to easily prove asymptotic stability of a discrete system. Then, we illustrate the principle of our approach through theoretical examples. Finally, we provide two practical examples using our method : proving stability of a localisation system and that of the trajectory of a robot., Comment: In Proceedings SNR 2020, arXiv:2101.05256

This paper presents a reliable method to verify the existence of loops along the uncertain trajectory of a robot, based on proprioceptive measurements only, within a bounded-error context. The loop closure detection is one of the key points in SLAM methods, especially in homogeneous environments with difficult scenes recognitions. The proposed approach is generic and could be coupled with conventional SLAM algorithms to reliably reduce their computing burden, thus improving the localization and mapping processes in the most challenging environments such as unexplored underwater extents. To prove that a robot performed a loop whatever the uncertainties in its evolution, we employ the notion of topological degree that originates in the field of differential topology. We show that a verification tool based on the topological degree is an optimal method for proving robot loops. This is demonstrated both on datasets from real missions involving autonomous underwater vehicles, and by a mathematical discussion.

This papers shows that using separators, which is a pair of two complementary contractors, we can easily and efficiently solve the localization problem of a robot with sonar measurements in an unstructured environment. We introduce separators associated with the Minkowski sum and the Minkowski difference in order to facilitate the resolution. A test-case is given in order to illustrate the principle of the approach., Comment: In Proceedings SNR 2017, arXiv:1704.02421

This paper deals with a problem from discrete-time robust control which requires the solution of constraints over the reals that contain both universal and existential quantifiers. For solving this problem we formulate it as a program in a (fictitious) constraint logic programming language with explicit quantifier notation. This allows us to clarify the special structure of the problem, and to extend an algorithm for computing approximate solution sets of first-order constraints over the reals to exploit this structure. As a result we can deal with inputs that are clearly out of reach for current symbolic solvers., Comment: Presented at the Sixth Annual Workshop of the ERCIM Working Group on Constraints