Advanced Motion Control of Multiple Robots

Dear Colleagues,

The motion control of one robot requires the design of efficient and robust control laws in order to achieve a desired performance. A recent trend in robotics is the use of multiple robots instead of a single one to solve certain tasks more efficiently. Several applications may benefit from the use of multiple robots, such as precision agriculture, greenhouse monitoring, service robotics, search and rescue, underwater and space exploration as well as the exploration of hazardous environments. However, the motion control of multiple robots has become an interesting and challenging problem from a control theory point of view, since controlling a multi-robot system involves communication and cooperation, and it is particularly challenging when the decisions are based on local information (i.e., only information from a subset of robots).

This Special Issue is dedicated to presenting research works where several robots have a global objective (task) and algorithmic solutions are proposed to control the motion of each robot such that a desired collaborative behavior is generated, mainly using local information that is shared among the robots.

We aim to provide a broad sampling of the research that is currently ongoing in the field of the motion control of multiple robots, for wheeled, underwater, aerial and humanoid robots in homogeneous or heterogeneous groups. The interest of this Special Issue is focused on scientists, researchers and students investigating multi-robot systems, but it may also be interesting to other readers involved in general in robotics and control theory.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas in the context of the control of multiple robots may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Control architectures and scalability.
• Control of robots with motion constraints.
• Advanced control design.
• Optimal and optimization-based control.
• Cooperative motion planning.
• Formation control with collision avoidance.
• Collaborative navigation.
• Synchronization of AGVS.
• Exploration with multiple robots.
• Control of multiple robots for novel applications.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Hector M. Becerra
Dr. David Gómez-Gutiérrez
Prof. Dr. America Morales
Guest Editors

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