Teleoperation of Multi-Robot Systems to Relax Topological Constraints

Multi-robot systems are able to achieve common objectives exchanging information among each other. This is possible exploiting a communication structure, usually modeled as a graph, whose topological properties (such as connectivity) are very relevant in the overall performance of the multirobot system. When considering mobile robots, such properties can change over time: robots are then controlled to preserve them, thus guaranteeing the possibility, for the overall system, to achieve its goals. This, however, implies limitations on the possible motion patterns of the robots, thus reducing the flexibility of the overall multi-robot system. In this paper we introduce teleoperation as a means to reduce these limitations, allowing temporary violations of topological properties, with the aim of increasing the flexibility of the multi-robot system.