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.