Anytime Plug-and-Play Control with Contract-Based Distributed MPC
For multi-robot systems operating in dynamic environments, this method enables flexible and scalable coordination without centralized control.
This work introduces a distributed multi-agent control algorithm that supports anytime agent joining and leaving the communication network without centralized coordination, validated in autonomous driving scenarios with effective collision avoidance in high-speed, dynamic environments.
A central challenge in many mobile multi-robot applications is that communication topologies are inherently time-varying. Agents may enter or exit the network and such changes cannot generally be restricted a priori. This work introduces a distributed multi-agent control algorithm based on local communication that supports anytime agent joining and leaving the communication network without centralized coordination. The method scales efficiently with the number of agents by relying on a distance-based neighbor definition and on contracts derived from predicted trajectories. The resulting contract constraints guarantee collision avoidance and constraint satisfaction. We validate the proposed method in an autonomous multi-agent driving scenario, demonstrating effective collision avoidance in high-speed, dynamic environments with agents moving in opposite directions, in both simulated and real-world experiments.