Abstract:
The safe flocking problem requires a collection of N mobile agents to (a) converge to and maintain an equi-spaced lattice formation, (b) arrive at a destination, and (c) always maintain a minimum safe separation. Safe flocking in Euclidean spaces is a well-studied and difficult coordination problem. Motivated by real-world deployment of multi-agent systems, this paper studies one-dimensional safe flocking, where agents are afflicted by actuator faults. An actuator fault is a new type of failure that causes an affected agent to be stuck moving with an arbitrary velocity. In this setting, first, a self-stabilizing solution for the problem is presented. This relies on a failure detector for actuator faults. Next, it is shown that certain actuator faults cannot be detected, while others may require $O(N)$ time for detection. Finally, a simple failure detector that achieves the latter bound is presented. Several simulation results are presented for illustrating the effects of failures on the progress towards flocking.
Reference:
Taylor T. Johnson, Sayan Mitra, "Safe Flocking in Spite of Actuator Faults", Chapter in 12th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (SSS 2010) (Shlomi Dolev, Jorge Cobb, Michael Fischer, Moti Yung, eds.), Springer Berlin / Heidelberg, vol. 6366, pp. 588–602, 2010, sep.
Bibtex Entry:
@incollection{johnson2010sss,
author = {Taylor T. Johnson and Sayan Mitra},
affiliation = {University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL 61801, USA},
title = {Safe Flocking in Spite of Actuator Faults},
booktitle = {12th International Symposium on Stabilization, Safety, and Security of Distributed Systems (<a href="http://www.cs.bgu.ac.il{\~}dolev/SSS10/">SSS 2010</a>)},
series = {Lecture Notes in Computer Science},
editor = {Dolev, Shlomi and Cobb, Jorge and Fischer, Michael and Yung, Moti},
publisher = {Springer Berlin / Heidelberg},
isbn = {},
pages = {588--602},
volume = {6366},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-642-16023-3_45},
gsid = {14477781552252082549},
abstract = {The safe flocking problem requires a collection of N mobile agents to (a) converge to and maintain an equi-spaced lattice formation, (b) arrive at a destination, and (c) always maintain a minimum safe separation. Safe flocking in Euclidean spaces is a well-studied and difficult coordination problem. Motivated by real-world deployment of multi-agent systems, this paper studies one-dimensional safe flocking, where agents are afflicted by actuator faults. An actuator fault is a new type of failure that causes an affected agent to be stuck moving with an arbitrary velocity. In this setting, first, a self-stabilizing solution for the problem is presented. This relies on a failure detector for actuator faults. Next, it is shown that certain actuator faults cannot be detected, while others may require $O(N)$ time for detection. Finally, a simple failure detector that achieves the latter bound is presented. Several simulation results are presented for illustrating the effects of failures on the progress towards flocking.},
year = {2010},
month = sep,
pdf = {http://www.taylortjohnson.com/research/johnson2010sss.pdf},
}