TY - GEN
T1 - Rigidity maintenance control for multi-robot systems
AU - Zelazo, Daniel
AU - Franchi, Antonio
AU - Allgöwer, Frank
AU - Bülthoff, Heinrich H.
AU - Giordano, Paolo Robuffo
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2013 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Rigidity of formations in multi-robot systems is important for formation control, localization, and sensor fusion. This work proposes a rigidity maintenance gradient controller for a multi-Agent robot team. To develop such a controller, we first provide an alternative characterization of the rigidity matrix and use that to introduce the novel concept of the rigidity eigenvalue. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition relating the positivity of the rigidity eigenvalue to the rigidity of the formation. The rigidity maintenance controller is based on the gradient of the rigidity eigenvalue with respect to each robot position. This gradient has a naturally distributed structure, and is thus amenable to a distributed implementation. Additional requirements such as obstacle and inter-Agent collision avoidance, as well as typical constraints such as limited sensing/communication ranges and line-of-sight occlusions, are also explicitly considered. Finally, we present a simulation with a group of seven quadrotor UAVs to demonstrate and validate the theoretical results.
AB - Rigidity of formations in multi-robot systems is important for formation control, localization, and sensor fusion. This work proposes a rigidity maintenance gradient controller for a multi-Agent robot team. To develop such a controller, we first provide an alternative characterization of the rigidity matrix and use that to introduce the novel concept of the rigidity eigenvalue. We provide a necessary and sufficient condition relating the positivity of the rigidity eigenvalue to the rigidity of the formation. The rigidity maintenance controller is based on the gradient of the rigidity eigenvalue with respect to each robot position. This gradient has a naturally distributed structure, and is thus amenable to a distributed implementation. Additional requirements such as obstacle and inter-Agent collision avoidance, as well as typical constraints such as limited sensing/communication ranges and line-of-sight occlusions, are also explicitly considered. Finally, we present a simulation with a group of seven quadrotor UAVs to demonstrate and validate the theoretical results.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959294264&partnerID=8YFLogxK
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84959294264
SN - 9780262519687
T3 - Robotics: Science and Systems
SP - 473
EP - 480
BT - Robotics
A2 - Roy, Nicholas
A2 - Newman, Paul
A2 - Srinivasa, Siddhartha
PB - MIT Press Journals
T2 - International Conference on Robotics Science and Systems, RSS 2012
Y2 - 9 July 2012 through 13 July 2012
ER -