Flocking of partially-informed multi-agent systems avoiding obstacles with arbitrary shape

In this paper, we study the flocking problem of multi-agent systems with obstacle avoidance, in the situation when only a fraction of the agents have information on the obstacles. Obstacles of arbitrary shape are allowed, no matter if their boundary is smooth or non-smooth, and no matter it they are convex or non-convex. A novel geometry representation rule is proposed to transfer obstacles to a dense obstacle-agents lattice structure. Non-convex regions of the obstacles are detected and supplemented using a geometric rule. The uninformed agents can detect a section of the obstacles boundary using only a range position sensor. We prove that with the proposed protocol, uninformed agents which maintain a joint path with any informed agent can avoid obstacles that move uniformly and assemble around a point along with the informed agents. Eventually all the assembled agents reach consensus on their velocity. In the entire flocking process, no distinct pair of agents collide with each other, nor collide with obstacles. The assembled agents are guaranteed not to be lost in any non-convex region of the obstacles within a distance constraint. Numerical simulations demonstrate the flocking algorithm with obstacle avoidance both in 2D and 3D space. The situation when every agent is informed is considered as a special case.

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