Robust connectivity of networked vehicles

TLDR

The paper introduces a localized notion of connectedness and a function that measures its robustness to position variations in vehicle networks. Under a mild feasibility hypothesis, the function yields a sufficient condition for global connectivity and can be computed locally using only neighbor‑to‑neighbor communications. It can serve as the basis for distributed motion‑control algorithms that respect connectivity constraints, and two simple target application examples are provided.

Abstract

We present a simple geometric analysis of wireless connectivity in vehicle networks. We introduce a localized notion of connectedness, and construct a function that measures the robustness of this local connectedness to variations in position. Under a mild feasibility hypothesis, this function provides a sufficient condition for global connectedness of the network. Further, it is distributed, in the sense that both the function and its gradients can be calculated using only neighbor-to-neighbor communications. It can thus form the basis for distributed motion-control algorithms which respect connectivity constraints. We conclude with two simple examples of target applications.