Distributed Role Assignment in Multi-Robot Formation

In this paper, we study the problem of distributed role assignment for multiple mobile robots. This problem arises when a mobile robot in the team must decide what role to take on in a desired formation configuration. In some applications, in which the center and orientation of a desired formation are not predetermined, the rotation and translation of the formation can be computed by using average consensus protocols. A conflict arises when the same role is assigned to more than one robot. This problem is resolved by using a negotiation strategy, while each assigned robot is traveling to the target position. Furthermore, dynamic consensus is used to measure the degree of task completion in this work. Once the consensus reaches a preset threshold, implying that robots should abandon the current task and start the next one. We verify our proposed framework through simulations on a team of nonholonomic mobile robots performing distributed formation switching.