Decentralized Multi-Robot Encirclement of a 3D Target with Guaranteed Collision Avoidance

Abstract

Abstract We present a control framework for achiev-ing encirclement of a target moving in 3D using a multi-robot system. Three variations of a basic control strategy are proposed for different versions of the en-circlement problem, and their effectiveness is formally established. An extension ensuring maintenance of a safe inter-robot distance is also discussed. The proposed framework is fully decentralized and only requires lo-cal communication among robots; in particular, each robot locally estimates all the relevant global quanti-ties. We validate the proposed strategy through simu-lations on kinematic point robots and quadrotor UAVs, as well as experiments on differential-drive wheeled mo-bile robots.