Development of a hybrid multi-layer control architecture for a cooperative team of N − homogeneous robots

Abstract

This paper proposes a hybrid centralized control architecture for formation control of N-homogeneous mobile robots. The addressed problem is maintaining an equilateral triangular formation using three mobile robots while moving towards a desired target avoiding any collision. The proposed architecture is divided into four main subsystems; a main path-planner, a nonlinear Lyapunov-based controller, a Secure Shell (SSH) communication module and an image processing algorithm. The main path-planner subsystem itself is subdivided into three algorithms; brain-like algorithm, sub-path-planner and an information center algorithm. The brain-like algorithm is responsible for all the decision making. On the other hand, the sub-path-planner works on translating the decisions of the brain into more precise decisions to the individual robots. Meanwhile, the information center acts as the memory for the brain to access saved information previously shared between the robots. It is shown that the control algorithm allows any initial allocation of the three robots to converge to a triangle formation in an optimal manner while avoiding collisions. Finally, the potential use of this formation as a platform acting as an autonomous mobile helipad is introduced as a practical application for the proposed architecture.