A Connectivity Preserving Rendezvous Algorithm for Unmanned Ground Vehicles with Visual Constraint

This paper presents a distributed rendezvous algorithm for multi-agent system (MAS) with directional visual sensors. Visual sensors with blind zones are widely applied to unmanned ground vehicle (UGV). Their special geometric fields of view bring a novel control challenge. Based on the circumcenter algorithm, a control law for MAS without electronic communication is proposed in this paper. The target point of the algorithm is set to be the circumcenter of the convex hull composed of neighbours. Previous studies have shown that maintaining the connectivity plays an important role in MAS to fulfil collaborative tasks. In our paper, the connectivity is maintained by the upper bound of velocity in a sector field of view. Simulations are given to validate the algorithm. Experiments prove that the boundary constraints are effective in preventing dispersion.