Connectivity control of mobile multi-robot networks

This paper proposes an efficient closed-loop control strategy to address the connectivity maintenance and aggregation avoidance issues in mobile multi-robot networks with consideration of limited communication range. In this proposed strategy, a fully distributed lightweight link deletion algorithm is synthesized to delete redundant communication links without violating global connectivity, and a potential field based distributed motion controller is designed to maintain essential links while keeping robots from aggregation. Theoretic analysis along with simulation validation show that, under the assumption of initial network connectivity, the closed-loop control strategy guarantees the connectivity of the network all the time, with both efficient aggregation avoidance and collision avoidance abilities in the meantime.