Area-Optimal Control Strategies for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Pursuit

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Mammadov, Kamal, Ranasinghe, Damith C.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Mammadov, Kamal
Ranasinghe, Damith C.
author_facet Mammadov, Kamal
Ranasinghe, Damith C.
contents This paper presents a novel strategy for a multi-agent pursuit-evasion game involving multiple faster pursuers with heterogenous speeds and a single slower evader. We define a geometric region, the evader's safe-reachable set, as the intersection of Apollonius circles derived from each pursuer-evader pair. The capture strategy is formulated as a zero-sum game where the pursuers cooperatively minimize the area of this set, while the evader seeks to maximize it, effectively playing a game of spatial containment. By deriving the analytical gradients of the safe-reachable set's area with respect to agent positions, we obtain closed-form, instantaneous optimal control laws for the heading of each agent. These strategies are computationally efficient, allowing for real-time implementation. Simulations demonstrate that the gradient-based controls effectively steer the pursuers to systematically shrink the evader's safe region, leading to guaranteed capture. This area-minimization approach provides a clear geometric objective for cooperative capture.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_15036
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Area-Optimal Control Strategies for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Pursuit
Mammadov, Kamal
Ranasinghe, Damith C.
Multiagent Systems
This paper presents a novel strategy for a multi-agent pursuit-evasion game involving multiple faster pursuers with heterogenous speeds and a single slower evader. We define a geometric region, the evader's safe-reachable set, as the intersection of Apollonius circles derived from each pursuer-evader pair. The capture strategy is formulated as a zero-sum game where the pursuers cooperatively minimize the area of this set, while the evader seeks to maximize it, effectively playing a game of spatial containment. By deriving the analytical gradients of the safe-reachable set's area with respect to agent positions, we obtain closed-form, instantaneous optimal control laws for the heading of each agent. These strategies are computationally efficient, allowing for real-time implementation. Simulations demonstrate that the gradient-based controls effectively steer the pursuers to systematically shrink the evader's safe region, leading to guaranteed capture. This area-minimization approach provides a clear geometric objective for cooperative capture.
title Area-Optimal Control Strategies for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Pursuit
topic Multiagent Systems
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.15036