Optimally Trading Energy for Information through Speed Trajectory Optimization of Sustainably Powered Mobile Robots

Engineering notes

Engineering notes will be added by the Robot Papers editorial team.

Chinese explanation / 中文解读

中文解读待补充：本站会优先为 VLA、具身智能、人形机器人控制、机器人操作等高价值论文补充中文说明。

Original abstract

Sustainably powered mobile robots enable long-duration observational missions by harvesting energy from the environment. However, effective autonomy requires the robots to make decisions as to how to allocate this energy to maximize information quality over time. In this paper, we study a persistent (infinite-horizon) speed trajectory optimization problem that is posed as a periodic optimal control problem in which a robot repeatedly traverses a fixed closed path, coupling a super-linear propulsion cost with dynamic information gain and decay. Using the information-theoretic quantity of clarity as an information metric, we first derive the necessary conditions for optimal control. We then derive a number of specialized follow-on properties, which characterize (i) the nature of the optimal control when points on the path are of varying importance and when they are of equal importance, along with (ii) a high-speed information limit that is approached when energy reserves approach infinity. We illustrate the information-optimal speed trajectories on a simple example in order to showcase key trends that are followed under the optimized speed profile. This is followed by a simulation study based on the persistent characterization of salinity in the Chesapeake Bay, illustrating the practical merit of applying the results from this work.

Links and sources

• Official / arXiv page
• PDF from original source

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