Physical- and network-topology control for systems of mobile robots

Systems of networked mobile robots, such as unmanned aerial or ground vehicles, will play increasing roles in future military operations. Such systems can be configured for many different tasks, and the topology of the system may need to be changed depending on the task. In this paper, we consider the problem of how to transition the system from one topology to another topology with a different network configuration while maintaining the network connectivity. We propose algorithms that solve this problem when the final network topology is a tree by using the concepts of prefix labeling and routing. We evaluate the performance in terms of the amount of movement and time required to achieve the desired network configuration. The algorithms we develop can be used to generate navigation functions that can be used by control systems to achieve a desired physical topology.