TY - GEN
T1 - A Distributed Simplex Architecture for Multi-agent Systems
AU - Mehmood, Usama
AU - Stoller, Scott D.
AU - Grosu, Radu
AU - Roy, Shouvik
AU - Damare, Amol
AU - Smolka, Scott A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - We present the Distributed Simplex Architecture (DSA), a new runtime assurance technique that provides safety guarantees for multi-agent systems (MASs). DSA is inspired by the Simplex control architecture of Sha et al., but with some significant differences. The traditional Simplex approach is limited to single-agent systems or a MAS with a centralized control scheme. DSA addresses this limitation by extending the scope of Simplex to include MASs under distributed control. In DSA, each agent runs a local instance of traditional Simplex such that the preservation of safety in the local instances implies safety for the entire MAS. Control Barrier Functions play a critical role. They are used to define DSA’s core components (the baseline controller and the decision module’s switching logic between advanced and baseline controllers) and to verify the safety of a DSA instance in a distributed manner. We provide a general proof of safety for DSA, and present experimental results for several case studies, including flocking with collision avoidance, safe navigation of ground rovers through way-points, and the safe operation of a microgrid.
AB - We present the Distributed Simplex Architecture (DSA), a new runtime assurance technique that provides safety guarantees for multi-agent systems (MASs). DSA is inspired by the Simplex control architecture of Sha et al., but with some significant differences. The traditional Simplex approach is limited to single-agent systems or a MAS with a centralized control scheme. DSA addresses this limitation by extending the scope of Simplex to include MASs under distributed control. In DSA, each agent runs a local instance of traditional Simplex such that the preservation of safety in the local instances implies safety for the entire MAS. Control Barrier Functions play a critical role. They are used to define DSA’s core components (the baseline controller and the decision module’s switching logic between advanced and baseline controllers) and to verify the safety of a DSA instance in a distributed manner. We provide a general proof of safety for DSA, and present experimental results for several case studies, including flocking with collision avoidance, safe navigation of ground rovers through way-points, and the safe operation of a microgrid.
KW - Control barrier functions
KW - Distributed flocking
KW - Reverse switching
KW - Runtime assurance
KW - Simplex architecture
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85120522592
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-91265-9_13
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-91265-9_13
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85120522592
SN - 9783030912642
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
SP - 239
EP - 257
BT - Dependable Software Engineering. Theories, Tools, and Applications - 7th International Symposium, SETTA 2021, Proceedings
A2 - Qin, Shengchao
A2 - Woodcock, Jim
A2 - Zhang, Wenhui
PB - Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH
T2 - 7th International Symposium on Dependable Software Engineering: Theories, Tools, and Applications, SETTA 2021
Y2 - 25 November 2021 through 27 November 2021
ER -