Steering dynamical systems with finite plans and limited path length

Abstract

Complex dynamical systems can be steered by using symbolic input plans. These plans must have a finite descriptive length, and can be expressed by means of words chosen in an alphabet of symbols. In this way, such plans can be sent through a limited capacity channel to a remote system, where they are decoded in suitable control actions. The choice of this symbols is essential to efficiently encode steering plans. To this aim, in this paper, we state the problem of finding symbols maximizing the interval of points reachable by the system along paths with constrained length. We focus on the problem with two symbols, and compare the results with those produced by plans not accounting for the length constraint. Moreover, the behavior of a simple helicopter, steered by both kinds of plans, has been simulated, in order to illustrate the power of the overall control system, and to emphasize the improvements introduced by the new plans.