COOPERATIVE DISTRIBUTED CONTROL OF TARGET SYSTEMS
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
- receiving, by a collaborative distributed decision system implemented by one or more computing systems, system information from one or more users that describes a physical system having a plurality of inter-related elements and having one or more outputs whose values vary based at least in part on values of one or more manipulatable control elements of the plurality, wherein the system information includes multiple rules that each has one or more conditions to evaluate and that specify restrictions involving the plurality of elements, the multiple rules including one or more soft rules whose conditions evaluate to one of three or more possible values under differing situations to represent varying degrees of uncertainty and further including additional rules whose conditions evaluate to either true or false under differing situations;
receiving, by the collaborative distributed decision system, objective information that identifies a goal to be achieved during controlling of the physical system;
obtaining, by the collaborative distributed decision system, sensor information that identifies current state information for at least one element of the plurality;
converting, by the collaborative distributed decision system, the system information and the objective information and the sensor information to coupled differential equations that represent a model describing a current state of the physical system;
performing, by the collaborative distributed decision system, a piecewise linear analysis of the coupled differential equations to identify one or more control actions that manipulate values of the one or more manipulatable control elements and that provide a solution for the goal, wherein the provided solution is within a threshold amount of an optimal solution for the goal; and
initiating performance of the one or more control actions in the physical system to manipulate values of the one or more manipulatable control elements and to cause resulting changes in the values of the one or more outputs.
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Abstract
Techniques are described for implementing automated control systems that manipulate operations of specified target systems, such as by modifying or otherwise manipulating inputs or other control elements of the target system that affect its operation (e.g., affect one or more outputs of the target system). An automated control system for such a target system may in some situations have a distributed architecture that provides cooperative distributed control of the target system, such as with multiple decision modules that each control a portion of the target system and operate in a partially decoupled manner with respect to each other, with the various decision modules'"'"' operations being at least partially synchronized and each having a consensus with one or more other decision modules, even if a fully synchronized convergence of all decision modules at all times is not guaranteed.
30 Citations
35 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
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receiving, by a collaborative distributed decision system implemented by one or more computing systems, system information from one or more users that describes a physical system having a plurality of inter-related elements and having one or more outputs whose values vary based at least in part on values of one or more manipulatable control elements of the plurality, wherein the system information includes multiple rules that each has one or more conditions to evaluate and that specify restrictions involving the plurality of elements, the multiple rules including one or more soft rules whose conditions evaluate to one of three or more possible values under differing situations to represent varying degrees of uncertainty and further including additional rules whose conditions evaluate to either true or false under differing situations; receiving, by the collaborative distributed decision system, objective information that identifies a goal to be achieved during controlling of the physical system; obtaining, by the collaborative distributed decision system, sensor information that identifies current state information for at least one element of the plurality; converting, by the collaborative distributed decision system, the system information and the objective information and the sensor information to coupled differential equations that represent a model describing a current state of the physical system; performing, by the collaborative distributed decision system, a piecewise linear analysis of the coupled differential equations to identify one or more control actions that manipulate values of the one or more manipulatable control elements and that provide a solution for the goal, wherein the provided solution is within a threshold amount of an optimal solution for the goal; and initiating performance of the one or more control actions in the physical system to manipulate values of the one or more manipulatable control elements and to cause resulting changes in the values of the one or more outputs. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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27. A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored contents that cause one or more computing systems of a collaborative distributed decision system to perform a method, the method comprising:
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receiving, by the one or more computing systems, system information from one or more users that describes a target system having a plurality of elements that are inter-related and that include one or more manipulatable control elements with modifiable values, wherein the system information includes multiple rules that each has one or more conditions to evaluate and that specify restrictions involving the plurality of elements, the multiple rules including one or more soft rules whose conditions evaluate to one of three or more possible values under differing situations to represent varying degrees of uncertainty and further including additional rules whose conditions evaluate to either true or false under differing situations; receiving, by the one or more computing systems, objective information that identifies a goal to be achieved while modifying the values of the one or more manipulatable control elements; obtaining, by the one or more computing systems, sensor information that identifies information about a physical state of at least one element of the plurality at a specified time; converting, by the one or more computing systems, the system information and the objective information and the sensor information to coupled differential equations that represent a model describing a state of the target system at the specified time; performing, by the one or more computing systems, a piecewise linear analysis of the coupled differential equations to identify one or more values of the one or more manipulatable control elements that provide a solution for the goal for the specified time, wherein the provided solution is within a threshold amount of an optimal solution for the goal for the specified time; and providing information about the identified one or more values, to enable modification of the one or more manipulatable control elements for the specified time to have the identified one or more values. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31, 32)
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33. A system comprising:
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one or more processors of one or more computing systems; and a memory containing a plurality of modules of a collaborative distributed decision system that, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement the collaborative distributed decision system, the plurality of modules including; a user interface module that generates a graphical user interface for use by one or more users and that receives, from the one or more users, system information that describes a physical target system having a plurality of inter-related elements and having one or more outputs whose values vary based at least in part on values of one or more manipulatable control elements of the plurality, wherein the system information includes multiple rules that each has one or more conditions to evaluate and that specify restrictions involving the plurality of elements; one or more sensor event modules that obtain sensor information identifying current state information for at least one element of the plurality; a target system representation builder module that converts the system information to a plurality of constraints, and that generates, from the plurality of constraints and the sensor information and a goal to be achieved during controlling of the physical target system, coupled differential equations that represent a model describing a current state of the physical target system; an optimization determination module that performs a piecewise linear analysis of the coupled differential equations to identify one or more control actions that manipulate values of the one or more manipulatable control elements and that provide a solution for the goal, wherein the provided solution is within a threshold amount of an optimal solution for the goal; and one or more output modules that provide information about the one or more control actions, to enable performance of the one or more control actions in the physical system to manipulate values of the one or more manipulatable control elements and to cause resulting changes in the values of the one or more outputs. - View Dependent Claims (34, 35)
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Specification