The classic extremum seeking control (ESC) system has been used, including in experiments, for over a decade as a mean for model-free, real-time method to steer systems, such as mobile robots, to the source of a scalar physical distribution (signal) using only local measurements of said signal. This is referred to in literature as the (source seeking) problem. Similarly, control-affine ESC systems, which are simpler in structure such as single-integrator, have been used for source seeking as well; however, they were rarely experimented on. Both classic ESC and control-affine ESC methods suffer from persistent oscillations even after the system approaches the source they are seeking. In this paper, we implement, and verify by novel robotic experiments, recent results on control-affine ESC, which enable source seeking with attenuating oscillations. We propose a simple, amended single-integrator design which we use in our experiments. The experiments were conducted for a light source seeking problem. Results imply that the proposed design has significant potential as it also demonstrated much better convergence. We hope this paper encourages expansion of the proposed design in other fields, problems and experiments.

翻译：经典极值搜索控制（ESC）系统作为无模型实时光标方法，十多年来已广泛用于实验场景，通过仅对目标信号的局部测量，引导移动机器人等系统趋近标量物理分布（信号）的源点。文献中称之为（源搜寻）问题。类似地，结构更简单的控制仿射类ESC系统（如单积分器）也被用于源搜寻，但鲜有实验验证。经典ESC与控制仿射ESC方法均存在持续振荡问题，即使系统已接近目标源点。本文基于近期控制仿射ESC的衰减振荡源搜寻理论成果，通过创新型机器人实验进行实现与验证。我们提出一种简洁改进型单积分器设计并用于实验，针对光源搜寻问题开展测试。结果表明，该设计不仅具备显著潜力，更展现出更优的收敛性能。期望本文能推动该设计在其他领域、问题与实验中的拓展应用。