Optimal Control of Cooperative Multi-Vehicle Systems

Nonlinear hybrid dynamical systems for modeling optimal cooperative control enable a tight and formal coupling of discrete and continuous state dynamics, i. e. of dynamic role and task assignment with switching dynamics of motions. In the resulting mixed-integer multi-phase optimal control problems constraints on the discrete and continuous state and control variables can be considered, e. g., formation or communication requirements. Two numerical methods are investigated: a decomposition approach using branch-and-bound and direct collocation methods as well as an approximation by large-scale, mixed-integer linear problems. Both methods are applied to example problems: the optimal simultaneous waypoint sequencing and trajectory planning of a team of aerial vehicles and the optimization of role distribution and trajectories in robot soccer.