1 research outputs found
Rigidity and persistence for ensuring shape maintenance of multiagent meta formations (ext'd version)
This paper treats the problem of the merging of formations, where the
underlying model of a formation is graphical. We first analyze the rigidity and
persistence of meta-formations, which are formations obtained by connecting
several rigid or persistent formations. Persistence is a generalization to
directed graphs of the undirected notion of rigidity. In the context of moving
autonomous agent formations, persistence characterizes the efficacy of a
directed structure of unilateral distance constraints seeking to preserve a
formation shape. We derive then, for agents evolving in a two- or
three-dimensional space, the conditions under which a set of persistent
formations can be merged into a persistent meta-formation, and give the minimal
number of interconnections needed for such a merging. We also give conditions
for a meta-formation obtained by merging several persistent formations to be
persistent.Comment: 1 zip file containing 1 .tex files, and 39 .eps files. The paper
(including the appendix) contains 13 Figure