Fault-tolerant V formation control of a leader-follower based multi-robot system in an unknown occluded environment

Abstract

This paper presents a novel self-organized flocking algorithm for a multi-robot system that employs the traditional leader-follower approach to produce and maintain V formation while navigating toward an objective location. To achieve self-organization for mimicking the bird flocking characteristics, a circular region-based shaped control strategy followed by an equilateral triangle fitting scheme is described. The control logic has been devised in such a manner that the multi-robot system can orient its inter-agent formation along the direction of the incoming navigational path. The system also includes a fault-tolerant feature in which, if the leader agent becomes weary during navigation, it will be automatically replaced by its immediate follower agent, mimicking the self-healing function of the bird flocking schemes. To demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed technique, simulation results (with and without fault-tolerant aspect) are furnished in this article.