Soft flocks for rendezvous and pursuit missions with distributed MPC

This paper concerns of MPC (Model Predictive Control) solutions for self-organized or soft flock formations of agents while carrying out an assigned mission. A distributed MPC algorithm is proposed to solve the formulated problem. Pursuit missions by agents formations can also be treated with the exact same algorithm. The obtained solution is completely decentralized in terms of pathfinding and mission completion. The coordination is done only by shared information between the agents, without any additional gathering node or other extra features, like a pre-planning or mission control. Collisions avoidance with obstacles and among agents are solved by introducing coupling constraints in the underlying optimization problem. The algorithm follows the protocol of a Stackelberg strategy game with a finite number of plays seeking an equilibrium outcome. Two examples are presented, the first showing a rendezvous mission and a second one where agents pursuit a moving object, illustrating the wide range of applications for the proposed algorithm.