A Comparison between Decentralized Local and Global Methods for Connectivity Maintenance of Multi-Robot Networks

Range limitation of communication links among robots in a multi-robot network, mixed with the mobility of the robots, creates a potential threat of disconnection of the communication network due to the robots movements. Recently, local methods have been proposed for maintaining the initial graph of connections, as well as global methods for maintaining a path between each pair of robots. This letter compares these methods in different aspects: the freedom of movement and the workspace provided by global methods is challenged by the amount of data needed to be exchanged with the local methods. Also, in the delayed networks, it is shown that local methods are leading to less restriction on the speed of the robots involved in the network. Simulation and numerical results are provided to further illustrate this comparison.