8,537 research outputs found
Robotic Wireless Sensor Networks
In this chapter, we present a literature survey of an emerging, cutting-edge,
and multi-disciplinary field of research at the intersection of Robotics and
Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) which we refer to as Robotic Wireless Sensor
Networks (RWSN). We define a RWSN as an autonomous networked multi-robot system
that aims to achieve certain sensing goals while meeting and maintaining
certain communication performance requirements, through cooperative control,
learning and adaptation. While both of the component areas, i.e., Robotics and
WSN, are very well-known and well-explored, there exist a whole set of new
opportunities and research directions at the intersection of these two fields
which are relatively or even completely unexplored. One such example would be
the use of a set of robotic routers to set up a temporary communication path
between a sender and a receiver that uses the controlled mobility to the
advantage of packet routing. We find that there exist only a limited number of
articles to be directly categorized as RWSN related works whereas there exist a
range of articles in the robotics and the WSN literature that are also relevant
to this new field of research. To connect the dots, we first identify the core
problems and research trends related to RWSN such as connectivity,
localization, routing, and robust flow of information. Next, we classify the
existing research on RWSN as well as the relevant state-of-the-arts from
robotics and WSN community according to the problems and trends identified in
the first step. Lastly, we analyze what is missing in the existing literature,
and identify topics that require more research attention in the future
A Message Passing Strategy for Decentralized Connectivity Maintenance in Agent Removal
In a multi-agent system, agents coordinate to achieve global tasks through
local communications. Coordination usually requires sufficient information
flow, which is usually depicted by the connectivity of the communication
network. In a networked system, removal of some agents may cause a
disconnection. In order to maintain connectivity in agent removal, one can
design a robust network topology that tolerates a finite number of agent
losses, and/or develop a control strategy that recovers connectivity. This
paper proposes a decentralized control scheme based on a sequence of
replacements, each of which occurs between an agent and one of its immediate
neighbors. The replacements always end with an agent, whose relocation does not
cause a disconnection. We show that such an agent can be reached by a local
rule utilizing only some local information available in agents' immediate
neighborhoods. As such, the proposed message passing strategy guarantees the
connectivity maintenance in arbitrary agent removal. Furthermore, we
significantly improve the optimality of the proposed scheme by incorporating
-criticality (i.e. the criticality of an agent in its
-neighborhood).Comment: 9 pages, 9 figure
Decentralized Connectivity-Preserving Deployment of Large-Scale Robot Swarms
We present a decentralized and scalable approach for deployment of a robot
swarm. Our approach tackles scenarios in which the swarm must reach multiple
spatially distributed targets, and enforce the constraint that the robot
network cannot be split. The basic idea behind our work is to construct a
logical tree topology over the physical network formed by the robots. The
logical tree acts as a backbone used by robots to enforce connectivity
constraints. We study and compare two algorithms to form the logical tree:
outwards and inwards. These algorithms differ in the order in which the robots
join the tree: the outwards algorithm starts at the tree root and grows towards
the targets, while the inwards algorithm proceeds in the opposite manner. Both
algorithms perform periodic reconfiguration, to prevent suboptimal topologies
from halting the growth of the tree. Our contributions are (i) The formulation
of the two algorithms; (ii) A comparison of the algorithms in extensive
physics-based simulations; (iii) A validation of our findings through
real-robot experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, submitted to IROS 201
Visibility maintenance via controlled invariance for leader-follower Dubins-like vehicles
The paper studies the visibility maintenance problem (VMP) for a
leader-follower pair of Dubins-like vehicles with input constraints, and
proposes an original solution based on the notion of controlled invariance. The
nonlinear model describing the relative dynamics of the vehicles is interpreted
as linear uncertain system, with the leader robot acting as an external
disturbance. The VMP is then reformulated as a linear constrained regulation
problem with additive disturbances (DLCRP). Positive D-invariance conditions
for linear uncertain systems with parametric disturbance matrix are introduced
and used to solve the VMP when box bounds on the state, control input and
disturbance are considered. The proposed design procedure is shown to be easily
adaptable to more general working scenarios. Extensive simulation results are
provided to illustrate the theory and show the effectiveness of our approachComment: 17 pages, 24 figures, extended version of the journal paper of the
authors submitted to Automatic
Decentralized formation control with connectivity maintenance and collision avoidance under limited and intermittent sensing
A decentralized switched controller is developed for dynamic agents to
perform global formation configuration convergence while maintaining network
connectivity and avoiding collision within agents and between stationary
obstacles, using only local feedback under limited and intermittent sensing.
Due to the intermittent sensing, constant position feedback may not be
available for agents all the time. Intermittent sensing can also lead to a
disconnected network or collisions between agents. Using a navigation function
framework, a decentralized switched controller is developed to navigate the
agents to the desired positions while ensuring network maintenance and
collision avoidance.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, submitted to ACC 201
Position and Orientation Based Formation Control of Multiple Rigid Bodies with Collision Avoidance and Connectivity Maintenance
This paper addresses the problem of position- and orientation-based formation
control of a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems in a D
workspace with obstacles. More specifically, we design a decentralized control
protocol such that each agent achieves a predefined geometric formation with
its initial neighbors, while using local information based on a limited sensing
radius. The latter implies that the proposed scheme guarantees that the
initially connected agents remain always connected. In addition, by introducing
certain distance constraints, we guarantee inter-agent collision avoidance as
well as collision avoidance with the obstacles and the boundary of the
workspace. The proposed controllers employ a novel class of potential functions
and do not require a priori knowledge of the dynamical model, except for
gravity-related terms. Finally, simulation results verify the validity of the
proposed framework
Decentralized Control of Uncertain Multi-Agent Systems with Connectivity Maintenance and Collision Avoidance
This paper addresses the problem of navigation control of a general class of
uncertain nonlinear multi-agent systems in a bounded workspace of
with static obstacles. In particular, we propose a decentralized
control protocol such that each agent reaches a predefined position at the
workspace, while using only local information based on a limited sensing
radius. The proposed scheme guarantees that the initially connected agents
remain always connected. In addition, by introducing certain distance
constraints, we guarantee inter-agent collision avoidance, as well as,
collision avoidance with the obstacles and the boundary of the workspace. The
proposed controllers employ a class of Decentralized Nonlinear Model Predictive
Controllers (DNMPC) under the presence of disturbances and uncertainties.
Finally, simulation results verify the validity of the proposed framework.Comment: IEEE European Control Conference (ECC), Limassol, Cyprus, June 201
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