An Experimental Study of Time Scales and Stability in Networked Multi-Robot Systems

Abstract

© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014. This paper considers the effect of network-induced time delays on the stability of distributed controllers for groups of robots. A linear state space model is proposed for analyzing the coupled interaction of the information flow over the network with the dynamics of the robots. It is shown both analytically and experimentally that control gain, network update rate, and communication and control graph topologies are all critical factors determining the stability of the group of robots. Experiments with a group of flying quadrotor robots demonstrate the effect of different control gains for two different control graph topologies.