MULTIPLE-OBSTACLE AVOIDANCE IN ROLE ASSIGNMENT OF FORMATION CONTROL

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for multiple-obstacle avoidance and a procedure of the role reassignment for robot formation control. The obstacle avoidance algorithm contains a bitwise logical operator which is utilized to distinguish between single and multiple obstacles in the immediate environment. The role for each robot must be reassigned during a robot formation being switching and the role reassignment procedure is designed based on the spatial relationship between the robots in the formation. Meanwhile, a motion controller is designed in this research based on the kinematics equation of the robots. The developed algorithm and procedure are applied to control the formation of a group omni-directional driven robots. Simulations and experiments are carried out on a real platform to validate the proposed algorithms. The results show that the performance of the integration of the role reassignment procedure with the multiple-obstacle avoidance algorithm is efficient for robot formation control.