A Variable Communication Approach for Decentralized Receding Horizon Control of Multi-Vehicle Systems

The stability and performance of decentralized receding horizon control (RHC) is often improved by modifying the cost function and constraints of the problem. However, variable communication presents an additional approach for further improvement. In this paper, new methods are developed for variable communication of decentralized RHC. Through modification of stability conditions recently developed for decentralized RHC, an investigation of the effect of faster communication rates, expanded communication radius, and multi-hopping communication on decentralized RHC is performed. The new approach is applied to a group of five mobile robots with different communication topologies.