Safety-Guaranteed Distributed Formation Control of Multi-Robot Systems Over Graphs With Rigid and Elastic Edges

: Pham, Hoang; Ranasinghe, Nadun; Le, Dong; Atman, Made Widhi Surya; Gusrialdi, Azwirman

Publisher: Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

: 2024

: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

: 9

: 11

: 10240

: 10247

: 2377-3766

: 2377-3774

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/LRA.2024.3471460

: https://doi.org/10.1109/lra.2024.3471460

This letter considers the problem of formation control of multi-robot systems represented by a graph featuring both rigid and elastic edges, capturing specified range tolerance to the desired inter-robot distances. The objective is to navigate the robots safely through unknown environments with obstacles, utilizing onboard sensors like LiDAR while maintaining inter-robot distance constraints. To this end, a novel cooperative control algorithm is proposed, employing quadratic programming and leveraging control barrier functions to integrate multiple control objectives seamlessly. This approach ensures a unified strategy and provides a safety certificate. Experimental validation of the proposed cooperative control algorithm is conducted using a robotic testbed.