A Passivity-Based Approach for Constrained Mobile Robotic Networks

This paper presents a strategy for the position control of mobile robotic networks subject to geometric con- straints. The main idea of this paper is to show that passivity arguments can be used to ensure both stability and constraint satisfaction. It is shown that it is possible to pre-stabilize the system dynamics with a proportional-integral consensus estimator and a proportional feedback loop which make use of passivity arguments. Then, the very same passivity arguments are used to ensure constraint satisfaction, using a set-invariance based Reference Governor. Simulations and experiments are carried out to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed solution.