Distributed Consensus Problem of Multiple Non-holonomic Mobile Robots

In this paper, we propose a new consensus protocol for networks of multiple mobile robots with fixed communication topology using a strategy based on an invariant manifold technique. The agents are subjected to non-holonomic constraints and transformed into Brockett integrator form. The objective is to asymptotically stabilize the non-holonomic model for each agent about a group decision value using distributed protocol. This approach solves the consensus problem in two cases: leader-follower consensus problem when the leader is static and leaderless consensus problem. Then, a design of test-bed is fully described for testing distributed protocols. The setup consists of a group of non-holonomic mobile robots moving on a platform with different ArUco markers on their tops, an overhead camera to determine the poses (positions and orientations) of these markers, and a desktop computer to provide the interaction between the robots. The design of this test-bed has relied on ROS framework as a software platform for offering ROS network architecture a solution for distributed communication. Finally, results were presented to show the performance of this design by applying the proposed protocol.