Modified null space strategy to solve consensus problem

Abstract

In the domain of multi robot systems, several applications necessitate agreement of all the individual robots at consensus/rendezvous point. Such an agreement can only be achieved by means of a control strategy. However, presence of obstacles in the navigation-environment makes the achievement of control objective floundering. This paper accentuates the failure of extant null space based control strategy to circumvent rectangular obstacles by means of mathematical proofs and extensive simulation studies. To over-come these short-comings, a modified null space based control strategy is proposed to solve the consensus problem. Proposed control strategy is tested in a complex environment consisting of rectangular and concave obstacles by means of computer simulations. Finally, a qualitative comparative analysis is presented to contrast the differences between conventional null space based strategy and the proposed modified null space strategy. 2016, University of Kuwait. All rights reserved.