Multilevel based topology design and formation control of robot swarms

This paper investigates the topology design and formation control of robot swarms inside a desired region. A novel multilevel based swarm topology, which consists of numerous co-centered regular hexagons, is proposed to present different formation shapes within the desired region. A potential function based controller is developed to achieve the designed formation of swarm robots. The controller contains three forces, generated based on potential functions, to drive robots into the desired region, arrive at designed levels, and avoid collisions at the same time. The local minima problem is also addressed. Stability of the proposed system is analyzed using Lyapunov approach. Simulations are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.