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Observation and Control
of Collaborative Systems
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Goals / Ideas of the Project Observation and Control of Collaborative Systems (OCCS)

In Phase II the project will investigate concepts and tools for the design of distributed observer/controller architectures. These are necessary in order to design more complex selforganising technical systems, which are at the same time safe, robust, and adaptive. In Phase I we have developed a generic observer/controller architecture, which allows for controlled self-organisation in technical scenarios. By observing and analysing the current state of the system under observation and control (SuOC), this architecture can be used to prevent unwanted emergent behaviours and to encourage or enforce the desired ones. In Phase II we will focus on complex distributed scenarios, which cannot be controlled by a single central observer/controller architecture. Therefore, our generic architecture will be extended into a distributed multi-level observer/controller architecture to achieve controllability of complex self-organising and adaptive technical systems. The potential of such a multi-layer observer/controller architecture for controlling complex distributed systems will be analysed systematically by theoretical analysis and experimental studies. We will explore the effect of different distributed observer/controller architectures on self-organisation, self-optimisation, and learning capabilities of the system. A major focus will be on identifying and analysing appropriate mechanisms for collective learning and cooperation within the technical system. In addition to some multi-agent scenarios, a major testbed for the validation of the project results will be the distributed application "Organic Traffic Control", which will be developed in the corresponding project OTC2. The generic results of OCCS are intended to be introduced into other projects of the priority programme.