Event-Triggered Indirect Herding Control of a Cooperative Agent
Patrick Amy, Brandon Fallin, Jhyv Philor, Warren Dixon
AI summary
Problem
Existing indirect herding control methods typically assume continuous inter-agent sensing or require cooperative targets to stop when the pursuer is absent, making them impractical for resource-constrained, intermittent sensing hardware.
Approach
The authors model the pursuer-target interaction as a switched system and derive a closed-form maximum dwell time via Lyapunov analysis, then design a piecewise trigger function that enforces a user-defined minimum inter-event time while adapting to tracking errors.
Key results
- Closed-form maximum inter-event time derived from switched-system stability analysis
- Event-triggered trigger function guaranteeing a user-selected minimum inter-event time to prevent Zeno behavior
- Lyapunov-based proof of globally uniformly ultimately bounded regulation for the combined pursuer-target system
- Validation through simulation and physical experiments demonstrating successful target regulation
Why it matters
Enables practical indirect herding control for resource-constrained robotic systems by bridging theoretical stability guarantees with real-world intermittent sensing and communication constraints.
Abstract
This work explores the indirect herding control problem for a single pursuer agent regulating a single target agent to a goal location. To accommodate the constraints of sensing hardware, an event-triggered inter-agent influence model between the pursuer agent and target agent is considered. Motivated by fielded sensing systems, we present an event- triggered controller and trigger mechanism that satisfies a user-selected minimum inter-event time. The combined pursuer- target system is presented as a switched system that alternates between stable and unstable modes. A dwell-time analysis is completed to develop a closed-form solution for the maximum time the pursuer agent can allow the target agent to evolve in the unstable mode before requiring a control input update. The presented trigger function is designed to produce inter-event times that are upper-bounded by the maximum dwell time. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through both simulated and experimental studies, where a pursuer agent successfully regulates a target agent to a desired goal location.