Distributed Control for a Multi-Agent System to Pass through a Connected Quadrangle Virtual Tube

TL;DR

This paper presents a distributed control strategy for multi-agent systems to safely navigate through a connected quadrangle virtual tube, ensuring collision avoidance and deadlock prevention with validated simulations and experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel distributed swarm controller based on a gradient vector field for passing through a virtual tube, along with a switching logic to prevent deadlocks and boundary violations.

Findings

Agents successfully pass through the virtual tube in simulations.

The controller prevents deadlocks and boundary breaches.

Real experiments confirm the method's practicality.

Abstract

In order to guide the multi-agent system in a cluttered environment, a connected quadrangle virtual tube is designed for all agents to keep moving within it, whose basis is called the single trapezoid virtual tube. 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 for the single trapezoid virtual tube passing problem. This issue is resolved by a gradient vector field method with no local minima. Formal analyses and proofs are made to show that all agents are able to pass the single trapezoid virtual tube. Finally, a modified controller is put forward for convenience in practical use. For the connected quadrangle virtual tube, a modified switching logic is proposed to avoid the deadlock and prevent agents from moving outside the virtual tube. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed method is validated by numerical simulations and real experiments.