Rendezvous of multiple Dubins car agents with minimal sensing and control requirements

We study minimalism in sensing and control by considering a multi-agent system in which each agent moves like a Dubins car and has a limited sensor that reports only the presence of another agent within some sector of its windshield. Using a very simple quantized control law with three values, each agent tracks another agent assigned to it by maintaining that agent within this windshield sector. We use Lyapunov analysis to show that by acting autonomously in this way, the agents will achieve rendezvous given a connected initial assignment graph and a merge assumption. We then proceed to show that, with a slightly different control law, an initial assignment is not required and the sensing model can be weakened further. A distinguishing feature of our approach is that it does not involve any estimation procedure aimed at reconstructing coordinate information. Our scenario thus appears to be the first example in which an interesting task is performed with extremely coarse sensing and control, and without state estimation. The system was implemented in computer simulation, accessible through the Web, of which the results are presented in the thesis.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Computer Science

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2010

Author dc:creator

• Yu, Jingjin

Contributors dc:contributor

• LaValle, Steven M.

• rendezvous
• multi-agent systems
• formation control
• Lyapunov analysis

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2010 Jingjin Yu

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/16796

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/16796