Distributed Control for a Robotic Swarm to Pass through a Curve Virtual Tube

TL;DR

This paper introduces a distributed control method enabling robotic swarms to safely navigate through a curved virtual tube in cluttered environments, validated by simulations and real experiments.

Contribution

It proposes a novel distributed control algorithm for swarm navigation through a curve virtual tube, with formal analysis and practical modifications for improved performance.

Findings

The method guarantees finite-time passage through the tube.

The modified controller achieves approximate control performance.

Compared to control barrier functions, it offers faster calculation speed.

Abstract

Robotic swarm systems are now becoming increasingly attractive for many challenging applications. The main task for any robot is to reach the destination while keeping a safe separation from other robots and obstacles. In many scenarios, robots need to move within a narrow corridor, through a window or a doorframe. In order to guide all robots to move in a cluttered environment, a curve virtual tube with no obstacle inside is carefully designed in this paper. There is no obstacle inside the tube, namely the area inside the tube can be seen as a safety zone. Then, a distributed swarm controller is proposed with three elaborate control terms: a line approaching term, a robot avoidance term and a tube keeping term. Formal analysis and proofs are made to show that the curve virtual tube passing problem can be solved in a finite time. For the convenience in practical use, a modified controller with an approximate control performance is put forward. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by numerical simulations and real experiments. To show the advantages of the proposed method, the comparison between our method and the control barrier function method is also presented in terms of calculation speed.