Fault-tolerant multi-agent scheme for leader/follower formation control of homogeneous mobile robot team

Abstract

This paper deals with fault-tolerance and formation control problems for homogeneous mobile robots under leader/follower failures by using the multi-agent paradigm. These issues are addressed by a cooperative approach supported by two kinds of agents: 1) robot agents (classified into a leader and a set of followers depending on their objective function), assigned to robots for collecting information, making decisions and transferring them to physical robots for execution; 2) supervisory agent (an interface between the control system and the team), synchronises and coordinates tasks of the other agents. These agents interact by a negotiation protocol to satisfy their objectives: 1) preserve predefined leader/follower formation; 2) conserve robots order inside the formation; 3) manage dynamic disturbance events (e.g., unexpected breakdown, integration of new robots). To validate this scheme and evaluate its performances, different simulations are examined by using ten robots evolving inside a grid environment cluttered with static obstacles with/without failures.