Improvement of bi-connectivity repairing method for multi-robot network

Abstract

In this study, we improve a control method for a multi-robot system to control network bi-connectivity. It is desirable for the network of a cooperative multi-robot system to be connected since the robots in the system exchange information via the network. To withstand a failure of robot, bi-connectedness of the network is important. The bi-connectedness should be resumed when it is violated. Thus, some control methods to preserve and resume the bi-connectivity are proposed. However, there exists some configurations with which the bi-connectivity is unrepairable by such control methods. To overcome the difficulty, we propose a method in which robustness of the connectivity is temporally abandoned. The network structure becomes robust against robotic failures by our method in the long-term perspective, although it may be fragile in the short-term. Some results of computer simulations are shown to verify the proposed method.