PARAMETRIC SYNTHESIS OF A MULTI-ROBOT FORMATION CONTROLLER USING THE STATISTICAL SIMULATION MODELLING
Abstract
The article proposes a parametric synthesis method of a multi-robot formation controller. The movement of the fo m tion i c ied out on the oute et by hum n ope to . Robot’ control system corresponds to the modular-assembly principle based on common software, the joint functioning of which is implemented by middleware, for example, Robot Operating System. Errors in the mobile robot control system are caused by: probabilistic application conditions, data-measuring system random errors, using simplified dynamic model within the development process. The influence of the operating conditions on the communication system and the mobile robot autonomous driving system performance reflects by the probabilistic-temporal characteristics: communications and information system delay and the inten ity of mobi e obot’ top . method of t ti tic imu tion modeling allowed taking into account the probabilistic-temporal characteristics of the mobile robot communication and the autonomous driving systems, as well as mobile robot dynamics. The coordinated movement of the multi-robot formation along a given path is provided by the method of a decentralized virtual structure. The task execution quality is evaluated by two indicators: the deviation of the form from the given one and the task-performance time. As an example, we consider the task of the movement of three robots along the route in a row-shaped formation, in which, for a given probabilistic- temporal characteristics, a multi-robot formation accomplish the given task in the shortest time with minimal deviations of formation shape from the given one. Optimization solution allowed us to determine the optimal parameter of the formation control system. The optimization problem was solved using the golden section method, statistical simulation was performed using MATLAB Simulink and Parallel Computing Toolbox packages. A simulation of a homogeneous group of three mobile robots movement was performed for the task of driving along the route in the row-shaped formation with an interval of 5 m and a desired speed of 3 m/s. The quality of the autonomous driving system ensures accident-free motion with an intensity of 1,2 stops per minute. The communications and information system with fully connected network topology provides communications flow between mobile robots with a frequency of no more than 10 Hz. Communications system delay vary in the range from 0.1 to 0.5 s.
