Multi-agent navigation functions: Have we missed something?
Date
2010-08
Authors
Tanner, Herbert
Boddu, Adithya
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Delaware
Abstract
This paper presents a methodology for designing (centralized) control laws which can probably steer a group of
robotic agents to fall into a formation of arbitrary shape, while following collision free trajectories. The scheme is
based on the concept of navigation functions, a special type of artificial potential functions without local minima,
and the paper describes how this idea can be generalized from its original formulation for single-robot systems,
to multi-robot formations. We indicate why existing solutions that have appeared in literature, although potentially
functional, may not have been accompanied with sufficient guarantees against the possibility of the system ever getting
stuck in non-optimal configurations. The problem is therefore revisited here under a new set of assumptions, a new
construction is proposed, and the properties of this new centralized potential function are analytically demonstrated.
Description
Keywords
Robotic systems