Journal of shanghai Jiaotong University (Science) ›› 2014, Vol. 19 ›› Issue (3): 279-286.doi: 10.1007/s12204-014-1500-z

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Distributed Cooperative Coverage of Mobile Robots with Consensus-Based Connectivity Estimation

Distributed Cooperative Coverage of Mobile Robots with Consensus-Based Connectivity Estimation

LI Xiao-li1,2* (李晓丽), ZHAO Shu-guang1 (赵曙光), LIU Hao1 (刘浩)   

  1. (1. School of Information Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China; 2. Key Laboratory of System Control and Information Processing of Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200240, China)
  2. (1. School of Information Science and Technology, Donghua University, Shanghai 201620, China; 2. Key Laboratory of System Control and Information Processing of Ministry of Education, Shanghai 200240, China)
  • Online:2014-06-30 Published:2014-07-15
  • Contact: LI Xiao-li (李晓丽) E-mail:xlli@dhu.edu.cn

Abstract:

This paper deals with the discrete-time connected coverage problem with the constraint that only local information can be utilized for each robot. In such distributed framework, global connectivity characterized by the second smallest eigenvalue of topology Laplacian is estimated through introducing distributed minimaltime consensus algorithm and power iteration algorithm. A self-deployment algorithm is developed to disperse the robots with the precondition that the estimated second smallest eigenvalue is positive at each time-step. Since thus connectivity constraint does not impose to preserve some certain edges, the self-deployment strategy developed in this paper reserves a sufficient degree of freedom for the motion of robots. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that each pair of neighbor robots can finally reach the largest objective distance from each other while the group keeps connected all the time, which is also shown by simulations.

Key words:

coverage| distributed cooperative control| minimal-time consensus| eigenvalue estimation

摘要:

This paper deals with the discrete-time connected coverage problem with the constraint that only local information can be utilized for each robot. In such distributed framework, global connectivity characterized by the second smallest eigenvalue of topology Laplacian is estimated through introducing distributed minimaltime consensus algorithm and power iteration algorithm. A self-deployment algorithm is developed to disperse the robots with the precondition that the estimated second smallest eigenvalue is positive at each time-step. Since thus connectivity constraint does not impose to preserve some certain edges, the self-deployment strategy developed in this paper reserves a sufficient degree of freedom for the motion of robots. Theoretical analysis demonstrates that each pair of neighbor robots can finally reach the largest objective distance from each other while the group keeps connected all the time, which is also shown by simulations.

关键词:

coverage| distributed cooperative control| minimal-time consensus| eigenvalue estimation

CLC Number: