A role-based control approach to coordinated path following with connectivity preservation

摘要

Multi-agent system has potential values in various areas and the connectivity within agents and contact between agents system and control station play an important role in many cooperative applications. In this paper, we propose a role-based control approach for multi-agent coordinated path following with connectivity preservation(CPF-CP). In our role-based framework, a specific role switch mechanism is applied to ensure the connection between multi-agent system and ground control station, owing to the introduction of relay agents. Distributed controllers are designed for different role assignments, to realize basic path following behavior and preserve the connectivity within the agents swarm while avoiding inner collisions in the meantime. The proposed role mechanism and respective controllers can successfully address the CPF-CP problem and the effectiveness of it is demonstrated by simulation experiments in a realistic simulator.