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A New Navigation Function Based Decentralized Control of Multi-Vehicle Systems in Unknown Environments

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Abstract

This paper deals with navigation for a group of vehicles while avoiding collisions and ensuring global network connectivity in unknown environments using a new decentralized navigation function. It is pointed out that the traditional navigation function is not effective in the situation where vehicles work in a large environment. It is shown that in this situation velocity of the vehicle would be extremely small, which is not realistic in practical applications. This paper proposes a new decentralized navigation function with a novel goal function based on which a decentralized control law that is along the negative gradient of the decentralized navigation function is derived. Finally the proposed decentralized control law is applied in a multi-vehicle navigation scenario. Based on the properties of the proposed navigation function and dual Lyapunov theorem, a sufficient condition is derived for vehicles to converge to regions surrounding their corresponding goal positions in a collision-free and connectivity-keeping manner. Simulation results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed method.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 639798, Singapore

    Yuanzhe Wang, Danwei Wang & Senqiang Zhu

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  1. Yuanzhe Wang
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  2. Danwei Wang
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  3. Senqiang Zhu
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Correspondence to Yuanzhe Wang.

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Wang, Y., Wang, D. & Zhu, S. A New Navigation Function Based Decentralized Control of Multi-Vehicle Systems in Unknown Environments. J Intell Robot Syst 87, 363–377 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-016-0450-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-016-0450-0

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