Adaptive obstacle avoidance control strategy for a formation under a narrow alleyway environment

Abstract

This article develops an effective adaptive obstacle avoidance control strategy containing formation decision mechanism and a model predictive control–based formation controller for a multi-robot system working in a narrow alleyway environment. First, a decision mechanism containing two obstacle avoidance methods, homogeneous deformation and heterogeneous deformation, is established to provide a flexible choice for the formation to pass through the obstacle area, taking into account the formation safety and environment constraint. Furthermore, a formation bank is preset, and a performance evaluation system containing structural deformation, convergence speed, and energy consumption is established to help determine the best obstacle avoidance configuration. Then, a model predictive control–based formation controller with the leader–follower approach is utilized to realize the configuration switching and keeping. In the end, the simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.