Integration of communication and control using discrete time Kuramoto models for multivehicle coordination over broadcast networks

This paper considers the integration of communication and control with respect to the task of coordinated heading control for a group of N vehicles. The heading control employed on each vehicle is a discretization of the well-known Kuramoto model of nonlinearly coupled oscillators. Stability for both all-to-all and random one-to-all broadcasts is shown to be dependent on the coupling strength, K, and the time discretization, DeltaT. For a desired system performance, DeltaT imposes a tight deadline by which the state information (M bits) must be propagated through the communication network. Routing optimization with respect to minimizing energy consumption is formulated considering the DeltaT deadline. Multi-hopping is optimal if time permits, but one-to-all broadcasting is more energy efficient when M/DeltaT is sufficiently large.