A Prototyping Framework for Distributed Control of Multi-Robot Systems

TL;DR

This paper introduces a prototyping framework that emulates distributed control of multi-robot systems on a single computer, facilitating practical testing of algorithms across different models and hardware.

Contribution

The framework uses the SPMD paradigm to simulate distributed control, enabling validation of algorithms on various dynamics levels including hardware testbeds.

Findings

Framework enables low-cost validation of distributed algorithms.

Demonstrated on quadrotor position-swapping task with consistent results.

Supports multiple dynamics levels from point-mass to real hardware.

Abstract

This paper presents a prototyping framework for distributed control of multi-robot systems, aimed at bridging theory and practical testing of distributed optimization algorithms. Using the Single Program, Multiple Data (SPMD) paradigm, the framework emulates distributed control on a single computer, with each core running the same algorithm using local states and neighbour-to-neighbour communication. We demonstrate the framework on a four-quadrotor position-swapping task using a non-cooperative game-theoretic distributed algorithm. Computational time and trajectory data are compared across the supported dynamics levels: a point-mass model, a high-fidelity quadrotor model, and an experimental hardware testbed using Crazyflie quadcopters. The results show that the framework provides a low-cost and accessible approach for validating distributed algorithms.