This work investigates the self-organization of multi-agent systems into closed trajectories, a common requirement in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) surveillance tasks. In such scenarios, smooth, unbiased control signals save energy and mitigate mechanical strain. We propose a decentralized control system architecture that produces a globally stable emergent structure from local observations only; there is no requirement for agents to share a global plan or follow prescribed trajectories. Central to our approach is the formulation of an injective virtual embedding induced by rotations from the actual agent positions. This embedding serves as a structure-preserving map around which all agent stabilize their relative positions and permits the use of well-established linear control techniques. We construct the embedding such that it is topologically equivalent to the desired trajectory (i.e., a homeomorphism), thereby preserving the stability characteristics. We demonstrate the versatility of this approach through implementation on a swarm of Quanser QDrone quadcopters. Results demonstrate the quadcopters self-organize into the desired trajectory while maintaining even separation.

Symbolic regression is a machine learning technique that can learn the governing formulas of data and thus has the potential to transform scientific discovery. However, symbolic regression is still limited in the complexity and dimensionality of the systems that it can analyze. Deep learning on the other hand has transformed machine learning in its ability to analyze extremely complex and high-dimensional datasets. We propose a neural network architecture to extend symbolic regression to parametric systems where some coefficient may vary but the structure of the underlying governing equation remains constant. We demonstrate our method on various analytic expressions, ODEs, and PDEs with varying coefficients and show that it extrapolates well outside of the training domain. The neural network-based architecture can also integrate with other deep learning architectures so that it can analyze high-dimensional data while being trained end-to-end. To this end we integrate our architecture with convolutional neural networks to analyze 1D images of varying spring systems.

Vector valued functions are often encountered in machine learning, computer graphics and computer vision algorithms. They are particularly useful for defining the parametric equations of space curves. It is important to gain a basic understanding of vector valued functions to grasp more complex concepts. In this tutorial, you will discover what vector valued functions are, how to define them and some examples. A gentle iIntroduction to vector valued functions.

In this book we introduce a new procedure called \alpha-Discounting Method for Multi-Criteria Decision Making (\alpha-D MCDM), which is as an alternative and extension of Saaty Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). It works for any number of preferences that can be transformed into a system of homogeneous linear equations. A degree of consistency (and implicitly a degree of inconsistency) of a decision-making problem are defined. \alpha-D MCDM is afterwards generalized to a set of preferences that can be transformed into a system of linear and or non-linear homogeneous and or non-homogeneous equations and or inequalities. The general idea of \alpha-D MCDM is to assign non-null positive parameters \alpha_1, \alpha_2, and so on \alpha_p to the coefficients in the right-hand side of each preference that diminish or increase them in order to transform the above linear homogeneous system of equations which has only the null-solution, into a system having a particular non-null solution. After finding the general solution of this system, the principles used to assign particular values to all parameters \alpha is the second important part of \alpha-D, yet to be deeper investigated in the future. In the current book we propose the Fairness Principle, i.e. each coefficient should be discounted with the same percentage (we think this is fair: not making any favoritism or unfairness to any coefficient), but the reader can propose other principles. For consistent decision-making problems with pairwise comparisons, \alpha-Discounting Method together with the Fairness Principle give the same result as AHP. But for weak inconsistent decision-making problem, \alpha-Discounting together with the Fairness Principle give a different result from AHP. Many consistent, weak inconsistent, and strong inconsistent examples are given in this book.