Multi-Robot Target Monitoring and Encirclement via Triggered Distributed Feedback Optimization

Abstract: We design a distributed feedback optimization strategy, embedded into a modular ROS 2 control architecture, which allows a team of heterogeneous robots to cooperatively monitor and encircle a target while patrolling points of interest. Relying on the aggregative feedback optimization framework, we handle multi-robot dynamics while minimizing a global performance index depending on both microscopic (e.g., the location of single robots) and macroscopic variables (e.g., the spatial distribution of the team). The proposed distributed policy allows the robots to cooperatively address the global problem by employing only local measurements and neighboring data exchanges. These exchanges are performed through an asynchronous communication protocol ruled by locally-verifiable triggering conditions. We formally prove that our strategy steers the robots to a set of configurations representing stationary points of the considered optimization problem. The effectiveness and scalability of the overall strategy are tested via Monte Carlo campaigns of realistic Webots ROS 2 virtual experiments. Finally, the applicability of our solution is shown with real experiments on ground and aerial robots.