The null-space-based behavioral control for a swarm of robots tracking a target region in obstacle environments

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the problem of region-based shape control for a swarm of robots in obstacle environments. The mission is described by several elementary tasks, including region-based shape realization, velocity synchronization, collision avoidance and obstacle avoidance. Then, appropriate control commands are designed separately for each elementary task. On this basis, a null-space-based behavioral control method is applied to the final distributed control law to solve the conflict among the tasks. The simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. All the robots are guaranteed to track a dynamic target region while avoiding the obstacles and the collisions among robots.