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This paper provides a method for obtaining a continuous-time model of a target system in a closed-loop environment from input-output data alone. The proposed method is based on a fixed-pole observer model, which is a reasonable continuous-time version of the innovation model in discrete-time and allows the identification of unstable target systems in closed-loop environments with unknown controllers. The method is within the framework of the stabilized output error method and shares usability advantages such as robustness to noise with complex dynamics and applicability to a wide class of models, in addition to advantages derived from continuous-time models such as tolerance to system stiffness and easy access to physical knowledge. The effectiveness of the method is illustrated through numerical examples., Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures

The dual Youla method for closed loop identification is known to have several practically important merits. Namely, it provides an accurate plant model irrespective of noise models, and fits inherently to handle unstable plants by using coprime factorization. In addition, the method is empirically robust against the uncertainty of the controller knowledge. However, use of coprime factorization may cause a big barrier against industrial applications. This paper shows how to derive a simplified version of the method which identifies the plant itself without coprime factorization, while enjoying all the merits of the dual Youla method. This simplified version turns out to be identical to the stabilized prediction error method which was proposed by the authors recently. Detailed simulation results are given to demonstrate the above merits., Comment: 6 pages, 14 figures

This paper is concerned with a formation shaping problem for point agents in a two-dimensional space, where control avoids the possibility of reflection ambiguities. One solution for this type of problems was given first for three or four agents by considering a potential function which consists of both the distance error and the signed area terms. Then, by exploiting a hierarchical control strategy with such potential functions, the method was extended to any number of agents recently. However, a specific gain on the signed area term must be employed there, and it does not guarantee the global convergence. To overcome this issue, this paper provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the global convergence, subject to the constraint that the desired formation consists of isosceles triangles only. This clarifies the admissible range of the gain on the signed area for this case. In addition, as for formations consisting of arbitrary triangles, it is shown when high gain on the signed area is admissible for global convergence., Comment: Accepted in the 59th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC 2020). arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1808.00312

This paper considers a formation shape control problem for point agents in a two-dimensional ambient space, where the control is distributed, is based on achieving desired distances between nominated agent pairs, and avoids the possibility of reflection ambiguities. This has potential applications for large-scale multi-agent systems having simple information exchange structure. One solution to this type of problem, applicable to formations with just three or four agents, was recently given by considering a potential function which consists of both distance error and signed triangle area terms. However, it seems to be challenging to apply it to formations with more than four agents. This paper shows a hierarchical control strategy which can be applicable to any number of agents based on the above type of potential function and a formation shaping incorporating a grouping of equilateral triangles, so that all controlled distances are in fact the same. A key analytical result and some numerical results are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method., Comment: Accepted by the 57th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control

Multi-agent coordination control usually involves a potential function that encodes information of a global control task, while the control input for individual agents is often designed by a gradient-based control law. The property of Hessian matrix associated with a potential function plays an important role in the stability analysis of equilibrium points in gradient-based coordination control systems. Therefore, the identification of Hessian matrix in gradient-based multi-agent coordination systems becomes a key step in multi-agent equilibrium analysis. However, very often the identification of Hessian matrix via the entry-wise calculation is a very tedious task and can easily introduce calculation errors. In this paper we present some general and fast approaches for the identification of Hessian matrix based on matrix differentials and calculus rules, which can easily derive a compact form of Hessian matrix for multi-agent coordination systems. We also present several examples on Hessian identification for certain typical potential functions involving edge-tension distance functions and triangular-area functions, and illustrate their applications in the context of distributed coordination and formation control.