Communication-aware target tracking using navigation functions - Centralized case

In this paper we consider a team of robots that are tasked with tracking a moving target cooperatively, while maintaining their connectivity to a base station and avoiding collision. We propose a novel extension of the classical navigation function framework in order to ensure task completion. More specifically, we modify the classical definition of the navigation functions to (1) incorporate measures of link qualities and (2) include the impact of a time-varying objective. Our proposed communication-aware navigation function framework is aimed at maintaining robot connectivity in realistic communication environments, while avoiding collision with both fixed and moving obstacles. We consider both packet-dropping and communication noise based receivers. We furthermore prove the convergence of the proposed framework under certain conditions. Finally, our simulation results show the performance of the proposed navigation framework.