Cooperative constrained motion coordination of networked heterogeneous vehicles

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive framework for coordinating heterogeneous mobile vehicles under multiple constraints, providing analytical solutions and algorithms validated through simulations for complex multi-vehicle tasks.

Contribution

It introduces a general differential-algebraic equations framework and constructive algorithms for feasible motion coordination among diverse vehicles with various constraints.

Findings

Analytical solutions for two-vehicle coordination tasks.

Simulation validation for heterogeneous vehicle groups.

Framework extends to time-varying and leader-follower scenarios.

Abstract

We consider the problem of cooperative motion coordination for multiple heterogeneous mobile vehicles subject to various constraints. These include nonholonomic motion constraints, constant speed constraints, holonomic coordination constraints, and equality/inequality geometric constraints. We develop a general framework involving differential-algebraic equations and viability theory to determine coordination feasibility for a coordinated motion control under heterogeneous vehicle dynamics and different types of coordination task constraints. If a coordinated motion solution exists for the derived differential-algebraic equations and/or inequalities, a constructive algorithm is proposed to derive an equivalent dynamical system that generates a set of feasible coordinated motions for each individual vehicle. In case studies on coordinating two vehicles, we derive analytical solutions to motion generation for two-vehicle groups consisting of car-like vehicles, unicycle vehicles, or vehicles with constant speeds, which serve as benchmark coordination tasks for more complex vehicle groups. The motion generation algorithm is well-backed by simulation data for a wide variety of coordination situations involving heterogeneous vehicles. We then extend the vehicle control framework to deal with the cooperative coordination problem with time-varying coordination tasks and leader-follower structure. We show several simulation experiments on multi-vehicle coordination under various constraints to validate the theory and the effectiveness of the proposed schemes.