Distributed, Stable Topology Control of Multi-Robot Systems with Asymmetric Interactions

Multi-robot systems have recently witnessed a swell in interest in the past few years because of their various applications such as agricultural autonomy, medical robotics, industrial and commercial automation and, search and rescue. In this thesis, we particularly investigate the behavior of multi-robot systems with respect to stable topology control in asymmetric interaction settings. From theoretical perspective, we first classify stable topologies, and identify the conditions under which we can determine whether a topology is stable or not. Then, we design a limited fields-of-view (FOV) controller for robots that use sensors like cameras for coordination which induce asymmetric robot to robot interactions. Finally, we conduct a rigorous theoretical analysis to qualitatively determine which interactions are suitable for stable directed topology control of multi-robot systems with asymmetric interactions. In this regard, we solve an optimal topology selection problem to determine the topology with the best interactions based on a suitable metric that represents the quality of interaction. Further, we solve this optimal problem distributively and validate the distributed optimization formulation with extensive simulations. For experimental purposes, we developed a portable multi-robot testbed which enables us to conduct multi-robot topology control experiments in both indoor and outdoor settings and validate our theoretical findings. Therefore, the contribution of this thesis is two fold: i) We provide rigorous theoretical analysis of stable coordination of multi-robot systems with directed graphs, demonstrating the graph structures that induce stability for a broad class of coordination objectives; ii) We develop a testbed that enables validating multi-robot topology control in both indoor and outdoor settings.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Philosophy

Level thesis:degree_level

doctoral

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Electrical Engineering

Department dc:contributor.department

Electrical Engineering

Grantor dc:publisher

Virginia Tech

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Mukherjee, Pratik

Chair dc:contributor.committeechair

• Williams, Ryan K.

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Abaid, Nicole
• Tokekar, Pratap
• Stilwell, Daniel J.
• Huang, Jia-Bin

• Multi-Robot Systems
• Stable Topology Control
• Convex Optimization
• Semidefinite Programming

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

Dc Identifier Other

vt_gsexam:31681

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/112835