Achieving the desired dynamic behavior in multi-robot systems interacting with the environment

In this paper we consider the problem of controlling the dynamic behavior of a multi-robot system while interacting with the environment. In particular, we propose a general methodology that, by means of locally scaling inter-robot coupling relationships, leads to achieving a desired interactive behavior. The proposed method is shown to guarantee passivity preservation, which ensures a safe interaction. The performance of the proposed methodology is evaluated in simulation, over large-scale multi-robot systems.