  A number of coordinated behaviors have been proposed for achieving specific
tasks for multi-robot systems. However, since most applications require more
than one such behavior, one needs to be able to compose together sequences of
behaviors while respecting local information flow constraints. Specifically,
when the inter-agent communication depends on inter-robot distances, these
constraints translate into particular configurations that must be reached in
finite time in order for the system to be able to transition between the
behaviors. To this end, we develop a distributed framework based on finite-time
convergence control barrier functions that enables a team of robots to adjust
its configuration in order to meet the communication requirements for the
different tasks. In order to demonstrate the significance of the proposed
framework, we implemented a full-scale scenario where a team of eight planar
robots explore an urban environment in order to localize and rescue a subject.

Robotics;Multiagent Systems