Micro-Macro Control [About This Issue]

This issue of IEEE Control Systems includes two feature articles and one Applications of Control column article. The first feature article, Microscale 2D Particle Position Control, is authored by Ion Matei, Maksym Zhenirovskyy, Johan de Kleer, and Anne Plochowietz [A1]. The authors have designed a method for moving small objects immersed in a dielectric fluid, using an array of thousands of electrodes. For a single micro-object, they use a micromodel, a nonlinear differential equation that describes the position of a single particle, to generate the control policy. This policy can be derived either analytically or numerically and has been tested experimentally. Additionally, the authors have developed a method using numerical optimization to find the appropriate control inputs (electrode potentials) for assembling particles into a specific density. This method uses a macromodel, a partial differential equation that describes the overall density of particles when the electrode potentials are varied. The method involves formulating a stochastic control problem that minimizes the difference between the desired and actual particle densities and using spectral methods to convert this problem into a form that can be solved numerically. The control methods will enable building a device that is similar to a printer and can arrange very small objects (from less than a micrometer to hundreds of micrometers) into specific patterns. The second feature article, The REEF Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory, is authored by Michael Anderson, J. Humberto Ramos, Benjamin Dickinson, Kevin Brink, and Prashant Ganesh [A2]. It results from a joint initiative from the Air Force Research Laboratory and the University of Florida's Research and Engineering Education Facility (REEF) Autonomous Vehicles Laboratory (AVL) to mentor and assist researchers seeking to initiate research in aerial robotics. The article provides a tutorial on how to begin flight research using the REEF Quadrotor and its REEF Estimator (a vision-enabled flight control enhancement). A GitHub repository provides resources and mentors collaborators in assembling hardware and software platforms for flight-based research. This includes a catalog of Robotic Operating System code, assembly and installation guides, and even shopping lists. Finally, a recent collaborative project between the AVL and undergraduate researchers is described. In short, this article aims to help aspiring researchers launch their aerial robotics experiments.

Automated summary

This issue of IEEE Control Systems includes two feature articles and one Applications of Control column article. The first article introduces a method for controlling small particles using electrodes in a dielectric fluid, while the second article provides a tutorial on initiating flight research using a quadrotor and vision-enabled flight control enhancement. It also describes a collaborative project between the laboratory and undergraduate researchers.