Connectivity constrained multirobot navigation with considering physical size of robots

Due to limited sensing and communication capabilities, a team of robots must maintain connectivity for information exchange while performing group tasks. Maintaining connectivity of networked robots is always a challenge in multirobot cooperation. In this paper, we develop a novel controller to guarantee multirobots with limited communication capabilities to approach their individual goal positions while maintaining network connectivity and avoiding self-collisions during motion. Physical size of the robot is particularly considered. A new inter-robot constraint named connectivity constraint is added to the constructed navigation function, which results in a potential field integrating navigation requirement, connectivity constraint and self-collision avoidance, simultaneously. Based on the improved navigation function, a controller with bounded control inputs is generated. Simulations are finally performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed approaches. © 2011 IEEE.