Analysis of Formation Control and Communication Pattern in Multi-Robot Systems

A collection of simple robots can replace a complex robot via cooperation. In the process of cooperation, forming a specific formation pattern will enhance the efficiency of work and data transmission between robots. In order to form a specific formation pattern, interaction between robots should be well studied. The interaction can be divided into two groups: motion interaction and information interaction. Motion interaction means the relative movement between robots and information interaction means the exchange of sensor readings or communication data of robots. In this study, graph theory is used to model the physical relationship and information exchanging topology among robots. Artificial potential field based high-level controllers are designed for the motion interaction of robots to form stable formations. Considering effects of different information topologies, two scenarios with six robots in formation control problem are presented and discussed. Simulation studies of the two scenarios show that motion interaction of robots in formation control is affected by information interaction. Factors such as robustness, convergence speed, power consuming, sensitivity, and system efficiencies are compared for different information topologies