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Automatic generation of optimally rigid formations using decentralized methods

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Abstract

In this paper, decentralized methods of optimally rigid graphs generation for formation control are researched. The notion of optimally rigid graph is first defined in this paper to describe a special kind of rigid graphs. The optimally rigid graphs can be used to decrease the topology complexity of graphs while maintaining their shapes. To minimize the communication complexity of formations, we study the theory of optimally rigid formation generation. First, four important propositions are presented to demonstrate the feasibility of using a decentralized method to generate optimally rigid graphs. Then, a formation algorithm for multi-agent systems based on these propositions is proposed. At last, some simulation examples are given to show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm.

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Correspondence to Rui Ren.

Additional information

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 60934003, No. 61074065), Key Project for Natural Science Research of Hebei Education Department (No. ZD200908).

Rui Ren is a lecturer of the Department of Control Engineering, Academy of Armored Forces Engineering, Beijing, PRC.

Her research interests include fault tolerance control and multi-agent systems.

Yu-Yan Zhang is an associate professor of the Institute of Electrical Engineering of Yanshan University, PRC.

Her research interests include measurement and control technology and multiagent systems.

Xiao-Yuan Luo received the M. Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the Institute of Electrical Engineering, Yanshan University, PRC in 2001 and 2004, respectively. He is currently an associate professor at Yanshan University.

His research interests include fault detection and fault-tolerant control, nonlinear control, multi-agent, and networked control systems.

Shao-Bao Li received the B. Sc. degree in automation from Yanshan University, PRC in 2006. He is currently a Ph.D. candidate at Yanshan University.

His research interests include cooperative control for multi-agent systems and wireless sensor networks.

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Ren, R., Zhang, YY., Luo, XY. et al. Automatic generation of optimally rigid formations using decentralized methods. Int. J. Autom. Comput. 7, 557–564 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-010-0540-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-010-0540-6

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