Experimental Evaluation of a Novel Approach to Cooperative Control of Multiple Robots with Artificial Potential Fields

Abstract

This paper presents a novel approach to the networked control of differentially driven robots using artificial potential fields. A set of multiple robots is considered, where each robot should travel to its individual destination while avoiding collisions with other robots. The transition to the individual destination is carried out cooperatively based on information that can be gathered with the communication network. The novelty of the presented solution lies in the deduction of the orientation control. It will be shown that the maximisation of the translatory velocity results in the robots to turn correctly to their destinations. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by experimental results.