Incremental swarm coordination control with self-triggered-organized topology and predictive-based control method

This work focuses on coordinating a swarm of multiple mobile robots with incremental joining units using an incremental-self-organized formation (ISOF) scheme. The ISOF scheme enables the assimilation of newly joined robots and autonomously establishes a feasible communication topology between the incremental and existing robots. To avoid redundant generation, the new communication topology is expanded and updated based on the existing topology while preserving the original structure. To realize the real-time update of control model and topology for generalized swarm system using the ISOF scheme, an incremental-self-triggered updating mechanism (ISTUM) is designed, and specific triggering conditions are defined. With the updated communication topology and control model, the incremental swarm system, subject to predefined constraints, can be controlled to achieve the desired formation objective using a model-predictive-control-based (MPC-based) protocol. The proposed control scheme aims to minimize the need for manual intervention in swarm reconstruction when incremental behaviour occurs, thereby enhancing the flexibility of swarm coordination. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the developed control scheme.