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Heuristic Predictive Control for Multirobot Flocking in Congested Environments

delete2024-01-01
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PRE
AI
G
Guobin Zhu
张清瑞 cover
张清瑞 (Qingrui Zhang) *
B
Bo Zhu
T
Tianjiang Hu
DOI:10.1109/TMECH.2024.3430907delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
Multirobot flocking possesses extraordinary advantages over a single-robot system in diverse domains, but it is challenging to ensure safe and optimal performance in congested environments. Hence, this article is focused on the investigation of distributed optimal flocking control for multiple robots in crowded environments. A heuristic predictive control solution is proposed based on a Gibbs random field (GRF), in which bio-inspired potential functions are used to characterize robot-robot and robot-environment interactions. The optimal solution is obtained by maximizing a posteriori joint distribution of the GRF in a certain future time instant. A gradient-based heuristic solution is developed, which could significantly speed up the computation of the optimal control. Mathematical analysis is also conducted to show the validity of the heuristic solution. Multiple collision risk levels are designed to improve the collision avoidance performance of robots in dynamic environments. The proposed heuristic predictive control is evaluated comprehensively from multiple perspectives based on different metrics in a challenging simulation environment. The competence of the proposed algorithm is validated via the comparison with the nonheuristic predictive control and two existing popular flocking control methods. Real-life experiments are performed to further demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed design.
Keywords:
Robots
Collision avoidance
Potential energy
Predictive control
Robot kinematics
Random variables
Trajectory
Artificial potential field (APF)
collision avoidance
Gibbs random field (GRF)
model predictive control (MPC)
multirobot flocking

Journal

I
IEEE-ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
IF:
7.3
Papers:
5.4K
Citations:
2.4W

Organization

S
Sun Yat Sen University
Scholars:
9.9W
Papers: 7.2W
Citations: 95