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Cooperative multi-agent search using Bayesian approach with connectivity maintenance

Hu Xiao (School of Marine Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China)
Rongxin Cui (School of Marine Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China)
Demin Xu (School of Marine Science and Technology, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China)

Assembly Automation

ISSN: 0144-5154

Article publication date: 17 April 2019

Issue publication date: 18 February 2020

440

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to present a distributed Bayesian approach with connectivity maintenance to manage a multi-agent network search for a target on a two-dimensional plane.

Design/methodology/approach

The Bayesian framework is used to compute the local probability density functions (PDFs) of the target and obtain the global PDF with the consensus algorithm. An inverse power iteration algorithm is introduced to estimate the algebraic connectivity λ2 of the network. Based on the estimated λ2, the authors design a potential field for the connectivity maintenance. Then, based on the detection probability function, the authors design a potential field for the search target. The authors combine the two potential fields and design a distributed gradient-based control for the agents.

Findings

The inverse power iteration algorithm can distributed estimate the algebraic connectivity by the agents. The agents can efficient search the target with connectivity maintenance with the designed distributed gradient-based search algorithm.

Originality/value

Previous study has paid little attention to the multi-agent search problem with connectivity maintenance. Our algorithm guarantees that the strongly connected graph of the multi-agent communication topology is always established while performing the distributed target search problem.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant U1813225, Grant 61472325 and Grant 61633002.

Citation

Xiao, H., Cui, R. and Xu, D. (2020), "Cooperative multi-agent search using Bayesian approach with connectivity maintenance", Assembly Automation, Vol. 40 No. 1, pp. 76-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-10-2018-0152

Publisher

:

Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2019, Emerald Publishing Limited

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