Voronoi-based Geometric Distributed Fleet Control of a Multi-Robot System

Abstract

A new distributed algorithm is presented for waypoint navigation of a multi-robot system. The proposed two-level architecture (reference generator and local controller) exploits Voronoi partitioning and purely geometric considerations to distributively generate references for each robot in order to ensure collision avoidance and convergence of the fleet to the waypoint. Flexibility in the obtained formation pattern is made possible by the algorithm, by not pre-fixing as usually done its geometric form. In addition, the gain tuning is easy and the setting allows to naturally obtain certain formation patterns and adjust the rigidity of the fleet. Moreover the distributed nature of the algorithm also allows robustness to online modification of the number of vehicles (in the fleet or within range of communication), also addressing the 2-robot scenario. Field experiments on ground mobile robots are provided to illustrate the performance of the algorithm.