Source Seeking Control of Unicycle Robots with 3D-printed Flexible Piezoresistive Sensors
This work addresses source seeking in robotics with new sensor technology, but it is incremental as it builds on existing control methods.
The authors tackled the problem of source seeking for unicycle robots using novel 3D-printed flexible piezoresistive airflow sensors, proposing a projected gradient ascent algorithm and a hybrid approach for sensor failure, with proven asymptotic convergence and experimental validation.
We present the design and experimental validation of source seeking control algorithms for a unicycle mobile robot that is equipped with novel 3D-printed flexible graphene-based piezoresistive airflow sensors. Based solely on a local gradient measurement from the airflow sensors, we propose and analyze a projected gradient ascent algorithm to solve the source seeking problem. In the case of partial sensor failure, we propose a combination of Extremum-Seeking Control with our projected gradient ascent algorithm. For both control laws, we prove the asymptotic convergence of the robot to the source. Numerical simulations were performed to validate the algorithms and experimental validations are presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methods.