Synthesis of a Time-Varying Communication Network by Robot Teams With Information Propagation Guarantees

Abstract

We present a distributed control and coordination strategy to enable a swarm of mobile robots to form an intermittently connected communication network while monitoring an environment. In particular, we consider the scenario where robots are tasked to patrol a collection of perimeters within a workspace and are only able to communicate with one another when they move into each other's communication range as they move along their respective perimeters. We show how intermittent connectivity can be achieved as each robot synchronizes its speed with robots moving along neighboring perimeters. By ensuring future rendezvous between robot pairs, the team forms a time-varying communication network where information can be successfully transmitted between any pair of robots within some finite period of time. We show how the proposed strategy guarantees a τ-connected network for some finite τ > 0 and provide bounds on the time needed to propagate information throughout the network. Simulations are presented to show the feasibility of our strategy and the validity of our approach.