Distributed Safe Navigation of Multi-Agent Systems using Control Barrier Function-Based Optimal Controllers

Abstract: This paper proposes a distributed controller synthesis framework for safe navigation of multi-agent systems. We leverage control barrier functions to formulate collision avoidance with obstacles and teammates as constraints on the control input for a state-dependent network optimization problem that encodes team formation and the navigation task. Our algorithmic solution is valid for general nonlinear control dynamics and optimization problems. The resulting controller is distributed, satisfies the safety constraints at all times, and is asymptotically optimal. We illustrate its performance in a team of differential-drive robots in a variety of complex environments, both in simulation and in hardware.