Decentralized robust receding horizon control for multi-vehicle guidance

Abstract

Abstract-This paper presents a decentralized robust Model Predictive Control algorithm for multi-vehicle trajectory optimization. The algorithm is an extension of a previous robust safe but knowledgeable (RSBK) algorithm that uses the constraint tightening technique to achieve robustness, an invariant set to ensure safety, and a cost-to-go function to generate an intelligent trajectory around obstacles in the environment. Although the RSBK algorithm was shown to solve faster than the previous robust MPC algorithms, the approach was based on a centralized calculation that is impractical for a large group of vehicles. This paper decentralizes the algorithm by ensuring that each vehicle always has a feasible solution under the action of disturbances. The key advantage of this algorithm is that it only requires local knowledge of the environment and the other vehicles while guaranteeing robust feasibility of the entire fleet. The new approach also facilitates a significantly more general implementation architecture for the decentralized trajectory optimization, which further decreases the delay due to computation time.

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