Guaranteed collision avoidance in multivehicle cooperative missions using speed adjustment

This paper presents a speed-adjustment method for avoiding obstacles during multivehicle missions. This method enables multiple autonomous agents to cooperatively avoid collision against popup moving obstacles while at the same time guaranteeing inter vehicle safety. The collision-avoidance algorithm assumes knowledge of a nominal trajectory for the obstacle and takes into account bounded deviations in the speed profile. Observing such deviations, the algorithm varies the pace of the mission accordingly, guaranteeing collision avoidance. A rigorous mathematical analysis based on Lyapunov stability theory is performed to provide performance bounds and safety guarantees of the algorithm. Finally, simulation and experimental results are presented to validate the efficacy of the method in realistic multivehicle mission scenarios.