Distributed Tree Rearrangements for Reachability and Robust Connectivity

摘要

We study maintenance of network connectivity in robotic swarms with discrete-time communications and continuous-time motion capabilities. Assuming a network topology induced by spatial proximity, we propose a coordination scheme which guarantees connectivity of the network by maintaining a spanning tree at all times. Our algorithm is capable of repairing the spanning tree in the event of link failure, and of transitioning from any initial tree to any other tree which is a subgraph of the communications graph.