Safe Coverage for Heterogeneous Systems With Limited Connectivity

Abstract

Operating multi-robot teams of diverse agents is an ongoing challenge for emergency deployments, where inter-agent connectivity is rare and environments are unpredictable. Heterogeneous systems must be capable of adapting autonomously while maintaining safety. Here, we develop an algorithm for heterogeneous decentralized multi-robot systems to independently manage safety constraints with provable guarantees for safety and communication in a coverage task. We demonstrate this algorithm in settings where up to 100 agents navigate a simulated cluttered environment with safety constraints that change as agents observe hazards. Further, we show that the performance of a system with a largely disconnected network is equivalent to a fully connected communication network, suggesting that treating connectivity as a constraint may be unnecessary with an appropriate control strategy.