{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,26]],"date-time":"2025-12-26T07:11:22Z","timestamp":1766733082485,"version":"3.38.0"},"reference-count":51,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,8]],"date-time":"2019-05-08T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1557273600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010663","name":"H2020 European Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["740593"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["740593"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010663","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010664","name":"H2020 Future and Emerging Technologies","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["645220"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["645220"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010664","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["The International Journal of Robotics Research"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2019,6]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> This paper presents a distributed algorithm applicable to a wide range of practical multi-robot applications. In such multi-robot applications, the user-defined objectives of the mission can be cast as a general optimization problem, without explicit guidelines of the subtasks per different robot. Owing to the unknown environment, unknown robot dynamics, sensor nonlinearities, etc., the analytic form of the optimization cost function is not available a priori. Therefore, standard gradient-descent-like algorithms are not applicable to these problems. To tackle this, we introduce a new algorithm that carefully designs each robot\u2019s subcost function, the optimization of which can accomplish the overall team objective. Upon this transformation, we propose a distributed methodology based on the cognitive-based adaptive optimization (CAO) algorithm, that is able to approximate the evolution of each robot\u2019s cost function and to adequately optimize its decision variables (robot actions). The latter can be achieved by online learning only the problem-specific characteristics that affect the accomplishment of mission objectives. The overall, low-complexity algorithm can straightforwardly incorporate any kind of operational constraint, is fault tolerant, and can appropriately tackle time-varying cost functions. A cornerstone of this approach is that it shares the same convergence characteristics as those of block coordinate descent algorithms. The proposed algorithm is evaluated in three heterogeneous simulation set-ups under multiple scenarios, against both general-purpose and problem-specific algorithms. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364919845054","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,8]],"date-time":"2019-05-08T07:06:04Z","timestamp":1557299164000},"page":"813-832","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":28,"title":["A distributed, plug-n-play algorithm for multi-robot applications with a priori non-computable objective functions"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"38","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1688-036X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Athanasios Ch","family":"Kapoutsis","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece"},{"name":"Information Technologies Institute, The Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas, Thessaloniki, Greece"}]},{"given":"Savvas A","family":"Chatzichristofis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Computer Science, Neapolis University, Paphos, Cyprus"}]},{"given":"Elias B","family":"Kosmatopoulos","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece"},{"name":"Information Technologies Institute, The Centre for Research and Technology, Hellas, Thessaloniki, Greece"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ACCESS.2013.2283031"},{"volume-title":"Nonlinear Programming","year":"1999","author":"Bertsekas DP","key":"bibr2-0278364919845054"},{"key":"bibr3-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/IRDS.2002.1041446"},{"key":"bibr4-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TRO.2004.839232"},{"key":"bibr5-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364913483345"},{"key":"bibr6-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TRO.2015.2400731"},{"key":"bibr7-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1016639210559"},{"key":"bibr8-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ROBOT.2002.1014727"},{"key":"bibr9-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TSMC.2015.2500027"},{"key":"bibr10-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1017\/S0263574707004092"},{"key":"bibr11-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1137\/1.9781611971446"},{"key":"bibr12-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10514-012-9292-1"},{"key":"bibr13-0278364919845054","volume-title":"Matrix computations","volume":"3","author":"Golub GH","year":"2012"},{"key":"bibr14-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s11721-013-0081-z"},{"key":"bibr15-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/34.295910"},{"key":"bibr16-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/JSYST.2014.2327972"},{"key":"bibr17-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MED.2013.6608870"},{"key":"bibr18-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10514-015-9510-8"},{"key":"bibr19-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.ifacol.2015.06.038"},{"key":"bibr20-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ROBOT.2004.1307456"},{"key":"bibr21-0278364919845054","first-page":"1369","volume":"8","author":"Kollar T","year":"2008","journal-title":"AAAI"},{"key":"bibr22-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364907087426"},{"key":"bibr23-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.apenergy.2015.10.140"},{"key":"bibr24-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.automatica.2008.09.014"},{"key":"bibr25-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TNN.2009.2014061"},{"key":"bibr26-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TITS.2011.2159002"},{"key":"bibr27-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/CDC.2009.5399526"},{"key":"bibr28-0278364919845054","first-page":"2017","author":"Matignon L","year":"2012","journal-title":"AAAI 2012"},{"key":"bibr29-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364916632065"},{"key":"bibr30-0278364919845054","unstructured":"Nesterov Y (2007) Gradient methods for minimizing composite objective function. Technical Report, UCL."},{"key":"bibr31-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/ICUAS.2014.6842355"},{"key":"bibr32-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TRO.2016.2602383"},{"volume-title":"Identification and control of nonlinear systems using neural network models: Design and stability analysis","year":"1991","author":"Polycarpou MM","key":"bibr33-0278364919845054"},{"key":"bibr34-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.2478\/pjbr-2013-0020"},{"key":"bibr35-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364912439332"},{"key":"bibr36-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.conengprac.2006.08.007"},{"key":"bibr37-0278364919845054","first-page":"1043","volume":"13","author":"Roy N","year":"1999","journal-title":"NIPS"},{"key":"bibr38-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/AUV.2016.7778658"},{"key":"bibr39-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/MRA.2014.2322295"},{"key":"bibr40-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.15607\/RSS.2006.II.007"},{"key":"bibr41-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/0278364908100177"},{"key":"bibr42-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.automatica.2015.01.031"},{"key":"bibr43-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1613\/jair.2674"},{"key":"bibr44-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1613\/jair.1659"},{"key":"bibr45-0278364919845054","first-page":"1127","author":"Stachniss C","year":"2003","journal-title":"IJCAI"},{"journal-title":"Instituto Superior T\u00e9cnico, Lisboa","year":"2007","author":"Teixeira F","key":"bibr46-0278364919845054"},{"key":"bibr47-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/978-4-431-55879-8_10"},{"key":"bibr48-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s10107-015-0892-3"},{"key":"bibr49-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1137\/120887795"},{"key":"bibr50-0278364919845054","first-page":"3852","volume-title":"2005 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, 2005 (IROS 2005)","author":"Zheng X","year":"2005"},{"key":"bibr51-0278364919845054","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1109\/TRO.2011.2114734"}],"container-title":["The International Journal of Robotics Research"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/0278364919845054","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1177\/0278364919845054","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/0278364919845054","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,3,1]],"date-time":"2025-03-01T23:08:58Z","timestamp":1740870538000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/0278364919845054"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,8]]},"references-count":51,"journal-issue":{"issue":"7","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2019,6]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1177\/0278364919845054"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/0278364919845054","relation":{},"ISSN":["0278-3649","1741-3176"],"issn-type":[{"type":"print","value":"0278-3649"},{"type":"electronic","value":"1741-3176"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2019,5,8]]}}}