A Multirobot Control Architecture for Collaborative Missions Comprised of Tightly Coupled, Interconnected Tasks

Collaborative systems offer disruptive mission capabilities such as support services, coordinated efforts, and resource sharing. To this end, researchers have explored algorithms for task coordination and resource allocation, but have not effectively addressed the topic of coordinated motion control. We present a unified motion control architecture for tightly coupled, collaborative systems that are emerging in robotics applications. In this article, we discuss the construction of the control architecture elements, present formal stability analysis spanning all tasks and configurations, and provide examples of single-task and multitask missions.