Decentralized Discrete-Time Formation Control for Multirobot Systems

Abstract

Inspired from the collective behavior of biological entities for the group motion coordination, this paper analyzes the formation control of mobile robots in discrete time where each robot can sense only the position of certain team members and the group behavior is achieved through the local interactions of robots. The main contribution is an original formal proof about the global convergence to the formation pattern represented by an arbitrary Formation Graph using attractive potential functions. The analysis is addressed for the case of omnidirectional robots with numerical simulations.

Method of agents’ state estimation in multiresolution multiagent simulation

“…The idea of the coordination of multiple agents has emerged from both observation and simulation of a collective behavior of biological entities (like ants or birds). They achieve a complex group behavior through some network communication channels and an ordered motion coordination [8].…”

“…The example of such strategy is Reynold's Boid model [9]. The second approach is based on specified communication network topology called Formation Graph (FG) [8]. The nodes represent agents positions whilst the edges possible communication channels between matched pairs of agents.…”

“…4. Formation Graph example [8] Most approaches to the formation control are analyzed from continuous-time point of view, for instance the complete FG, where exist a bidirectional communication between every pair of agents [10]. The discrete time formation control has been generally studied with the use of consensus algorithms which includes a relative position vectors [11].…”

“…The formation control strategy used for a disaggregation is described precisely in [8]. It is based on Formation Graph.…”

“…The paper proposes to use multiagent techniques for estimation of agent's state in the multiresolution multiagent simulation. The key methods we have used for state aggregation and disaggregation are: consensus algorithm [15] and formation control [8]. They will be described in detail in later sections of this paper.…”