An Orbital Approach to Deadlock Resolution in Multi-Agent Coordination

The paper presents a novel approach to resolving deadlock situations in multi-agent systems. The approach involves establishing a virtual orbital path over robots involved in a deadlock situation. Robots involved in a deadlock situation are directed towards the circumference of the virtual circle, the direction to move clockwise or counterclockwise is decided on the cost function. Upon reaching a point where robots form a tangent from the virtual circle to the goal point, the robot exits the orbit. The paper presents two controllers, a trajectory tracking controller and a set point controller. A trajectory tracking controller is activated when the robot follows the circumference of the virtual circle, and a set point controller is activated when the robot leaves the circle from the tangential point towards their original goals. Simulation results, conducted in a Gazebo environment using a Robot Operating System (ROS), illustrate the algorithm's capability to effectively resolve the deadlock situations.