Decentralized Control of Cooperative Robotic Vehicles

This paper describes how decentralized control theory can be used to control multiple cooperative robotic vehicles. Models of cooperation are discussed and related to the input/output reachability and structural observability and controllability of the entire system. Whereas decentralized control research in the past has concentrated on using decentralized controllers to partition complex physically interconnected systems, this work uses decentralized methods to connect otherwise independent non-touching robotic vehicles so that they behave in a stable, coordinated fashion. A vector Liapunov method is used to prove stability of a single example: the controlled motion of multiple vehicles along a line. The results of this stability analysis have been implemented on two applications: a robotic perimeter surveillance system and self-healing minefield.