{"paper_id":"0a93ad57-d86b-4a2b-949d-5308c63f8dd8","body_text":"Navigation function for Multi-Agent Multi-Target Interception Missions | Research Square window.SnipcartSettings = { analytics: { enabled: false } }; (function() { var accessVector = localStorage.getItem('access_vector') || ''; window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || []; if (accessVector) { window.dataLayer.push({ user: { profile: { profileInfo: { snid: accessVector } } } }); } })(); (function(w,d,s,l,i){w[l]=w[l]||[];w[l].push({'gtm.start':new Date().getTime(),event:'gtm.js'});var f=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],j=d.createElement(s),dl=l!='dataLayer'?'&l='+l:'';j.async=true;j.src='https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id='+i+dl;f.parentNode.insertBefore(j,f);})(window,document,'script','dataLayer','GTM-K279D39R'); Browse Preprints In Review Journals COVID-19 Preprints AJE Video Bytes Research Tools Research Promotion AJE Professional Editing AJE Rubriq About Preprint Platform In Review Editorial Policies Our Team Advisory Board Help Center Sign In Submit a Preprint Cite Share Download PDF Article Navigation function for Multi-Agent Multi-Target Interception Missions Shlomi Hacohen, Shraga Shoval, Nir Shvalb This is a preprint; it has not been peer reviewed by a journal. https://doi.org/ 10.21203/rs.3.rs-1901569/v1 This work is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 License Status: Published Journal Publication published 01 Jan, 2024 Read the published version in IEEE Access → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Abstract Missions across a variety of disciplines require the interception of multiple targets. In defence scenarios, targets may pose a threat to sites, while in agriculture the targets may be invasive pests or fruit ready to harvest. This paper focuses on the cooperative control of a robot swarm for interception missions of multiple static and dynamic targets while avoiding collisions. We formulate two modifications of the classical Navigation-Function which are suited for deterministic and stochastic scenarios. Both provide a simultaneous solution for the problems of target assignment and motion-planning as opposed to the classical approaches that solve each problem independently. We show analytically that by following the Swarm-Navigation-Function gradient, the swarm will intercept all static targets while avoiding agent-agent and agent-obstacle collisions and similarly following the gradient of the Probabilistic-Navigation-Function will almost surely converge to a target in finite time, while the probability for agent-agent and agent-obstacles collisions is limited to a predefined value. The complexity of both schemes is linear with the number of targets and robots, and therefore it is scalable. Although not optimal, these solutions are simple and efficient, making them suitable for an extended set of real-time and real-life applications. We compare the resulting Swarm-Navigation-Function trajectories to that of a human in a catch game and an interception virtual game, the comparison indicates that as the trajectories are similar, human decision-making performs better. We conclude the paper with a set of simulated experiments and real-world experiments demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed scheme for dynamic targets. Full Text Additional Declarations No competing interests reported. Cite Share Download PDF Status: Published Journal Publication published 01 Jan, 2024 Read the published version in IEEE Access → Version 1 posted You are reading this latest preprint version Research Square lets you share your work early, gain feedback from the community, and start making changes to your manuscript prior to peer review in a journal. As a division of Research Square Company, we’re committed to making research communication faster, fairer, and more useful. We do this by developing innovative software and high quality services for the global research community. Our growing team is made up of researchers and industry professionals working together to solve the most critical problems facing scientific publishing. Also discoverable on Platform About Our Team In Review Editorial Policies Advisory Board Help Center Resources Author Services Accessibility API Access RSS feed Manage Cookie Preferences © Research Square 2026 | ISSN 2693-5015 (online) Privacy Policy Terms of Service Do Not Sell My Personal Information {\"props\":{\"pageProps\":{\"initialData\":{\"identity\":\"rs-1901569\",\"acceptedTermsAndConditions\":true,\"allowDirectSubmit\":true,\"archivedVersions\":[],\"articleType\":\"Article\",\"associatedPublications\":[],\"authors\":[{\"id\":134142211,\"identity\":\"4545aa79-11fa-47c3-bc39-14ec13bd5af5\",\"order_by\":0,\"name\":\"Shlomi Hacohen\",\"email\":\"\",\"orcid\":\"\",\"institution\":\"Ariel University\",\"correspondingAuthor\":false,\"submittingAuthor\":false,\"prefix\":\"\",\"firstName\":\"Shlomi\",\"middleName\":\"\",\"lastName\":\"Hacohen\",\"suffix\":\"\"},{\"id\":134142213,\"identity\":\"7d58b336-bfab-4a4e-80f7-a2205d6e2b47\",\"order_by\":1,\"name\":\"Shraga Shoval\",\"email\":\"\",\"orcid\":\"\",\"institution\":\"Ariel University\",\"correspondingAuthor\":false,\"submittingAuthor\":false,\"prefix\":\"\",\"firstName\":\"Shraga\",\"middleName\":\"\",\"lastName\":\"Shoval\",\"suffix\":\"\"},{\"id\":134142219,\"identity\":\"f4ed97a8-8231-4894-aab7-76e966ebf7a0\",\"order_by\":2,\"name\":\"Nir Shvalb\",\"email\":\"data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAZAAAAAyAQMAAABI0h/eAAAABlBMVEX///8AAABVwtN+AAAACXBIWXMAAA7EAAAOxAGVKw4bAAAAv0lEQVRIiWNgGAWjYDACZhCqYGBgY2BuAPF5+IjTcgakhRGihY0oixjbQBRECwNBLebsvI8/F86zy+djb2xg+FHDIENQi2Uzu5n0zG3Jlm08BxsYe44R4TCDw2xszLzbmA3YJBIbGHgbiNPC/Jl3Tr0Bm/zDBsa/RGphkOZtOAy0hbGBmVhb2KR5jh03YONJbDgsc0yCCC3njzF/5qmpNpBvP3zw4ZsaG3t+QlpQwAEGBgmSNIyCUTAKRsEowAEAPJMtjss2/7wAAAAASUVORK5CYII=\",\"orcid\":\"\",\"institution\":\"Ariel University\",\"correspondingAuthor\":true,\"submittingAuthor\":false,\"prefix\":\"\",\"firstName\":\"Nir\",\"middleName\":\"\",\"lastName\":\"Shvalb\",\"suffix\":\"\"}],\"badges\":[],\"createdAt\":\"2022-07-27 12:14:16\",\"currentVersionCode\":1,\"declarations\":\"\",\"doi\":\"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1901569/v1\",\"doiUrl\":\"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1901569/v1\",\"draftVersion\":[],\"editorialEvents\":[{\"content\":\"https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3376604\",\"type\":\"published\",\"date\":\"2024-01-01T17:58:47+00:00\"}],\"editorialNote\":\"\",\"failedWorkflow\":false,\"files\":[{\"id\":26215870,\"identity\":\"a56df1a7-53ee-46c5-9082-fccc67fb54c6\",\"added_by\":\"auto\",\"created_at\":\"2022-09-08 16:46:10\",\"extension\":\"pdf\",\"order_by\":0,\"title\":\"\",\"display\":\"\",\"copyAsset\":false,\"role\":\"manuscript-pdf\",\"size\":1758692,\"visible\":true,\"origin\":\"\",\"legend\":\"\",\"description\":\"\",\"filename\":\"SPNFsubmissionstoScientificReports21.pdf\",\"url\":\"https://assets-eu.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1901569/v1_covered.pdf\"}],\"financialInterests\":\"No competing interests reported.\",\"formattedTitle\":\"Navigation function for Multi-Agent Multi-Target Interception Missions\",\"fulltext\":[{\"header\":\"Full Text\",\"content\":\"This preprint is available for \\u003ca href='/article/rs-1901569/latest.pdf' target='_blank'\\u003edownload as a PDF\\u003c/a\\u003e.\"}],\"fulltextSource\":\"\",\"fullText\":\"\",\"funders\":[],\"hasAdminPriorityOnWorkflow\":false,\"hasManuscriptDocX\":false,\"hasOptedInToPreprint\":true,\"hasPassedJournalQc\":\"\",\"hasAnyPriority\":false,\"hideJournal\":false,\"highlight\":\"\",\"institution\":\"\",\"isAcceptedByJournal\":true,\"isAuthorSuppliedPdf\":true,\"isDeskRejected\":\"\",\"isHiddenFromSearch\":false,\"isInQc\":false,\"isInWorkflow\":false,\"isPdf\":false,\"isPdfUpToDate\":true,\"isWithdrawnOrRetracted\":false,\"journal\":{\"display\":true,\"email\":\"info@researchsquare.com\",\"identity\":\"researchsquare\",\"isNatureJournal\":false,\"hasQc\":true,\"allowDirectSubmit\":true,\"externalIdentity\":\"\",\"sideBox\":\"\",\"snPcode\":\"\",\"submissionUrl\":\"/submission\",\"title\":\"Research Square\",\"twitterHandle\":\"researchsquare\",\"acdcEnabled\":true,\"dfaEnabled\":false,\"editorialSystem\":\"\",\"reportingPortfolio\":\"\",\"inReviewEnabled\":false,\"inReviewRevisionsEnabled\":true},\"keywords\":\"\",\"lastPublishedDoi\":\"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1901569/v1\",\"lastPublishedDoiUrl\":\"https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1901569/v1\",\"license\":{\"name\":\"CC BY 4.0\",\"url\":\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/\"},\"manuscriptAbstract\":\"\\u003cp\\u003eMissions across a variety of disciplines require the interception of multiple targets. In defence scenarios, targets may pose a threat to sites, while in agriculture the targets may be invasive pests or fruit ready to harvest. This paper focuses on the cooperative control of a robot swarm for interception missions of multiple static and dynamic targets while avoiding collisions. We formulate two modifications of the classical Navigation-Function which are suited for deterministic and stochastic scenarios. Both provide a simultaneous solution for the problems of target assignment and motion-planning as opposed to the classical approaches that solve each problem independently.\\u0026nbsp;\\u003c/p\\u003e\\n\\u003cp\\u003eWe show analytically that by following the Swarm-Navigation-Function gradient, the swarm will intercept all static targets while avoiding agent-agent and agent-obstacle collisions and similarly following the gradient of the Probabilistic-Navigation-Function will almost surely converge to a target in finite time, while the probability for agent-agent and agent-obstacles collisions is limited to a predefined value. The complexity of both schemes is linear with the number of targets and robots, and therefore it is scalable. Although not optimal, these solutions are simple and efficient, making them suitable for an extended set of real-time and real-life applications. We compare the resulting Swarm-Navigation-Function trajectories to that of a human in a catch game and an interception virtual game, the comparison indicates that as the trajectories are similar, human decision-making performs better. We conclude the paper with a set of simulated experiments and real-world experiments demonstrating the efficiency of the proposed scheme for dynamic targets.\\u003c/p\\u003e\",\"manuscriptTitle\":\"Navigation function for Multi-Agent Multi-Target Interception Missions\",\"msid\":\"\",\"msnumber\":\"\",\"nonDraftVersions\":[{\"code\":1,\"date\":\"2022-09-08 16:45:53\",\"doi\":\"10.21203/rs.3.rs-1901569/v1\",\"editorialEvents\":[{\"type\":\"communityComments\",\"content\":0}],\"status\":\"published\",\"journal\":{\"display\":true,\"email\":\"info@researchsquare.com\",\"identity\":\"researchsquare\",\"isNatureJournal\":false,\"hasQc\":true,\"allowDirectSubmit\":true,\"externalIdentity\":\"\",\"sideBox\":\"\",\"snPcode\":\"\",\"submissionUrl\":\"/submission\",\"title\":\"Research Square\",\"twitterHandle\":\"researchsquare\",\"acdcEnabled\":true,\"dfaEnabled\":false,\"editorialSystem\":\"\",\"reportingPortfolio\":\"\",\"inReviewEnabled\":false,\"inReviewRevisionsEnabled\":true}}],\"origin\":\"\",\"ownerIdentity\":\"e136c531-8342-4061-95ff-2a1aa56f3919\",\"owner\":[],\"postedDate\":\"September 8th, 2022\",\"published\":true,\"recentEditorialEvents\":[],\"rejectedJournal\":[],\"revision\":\"\",\"amendment\":\"\",\"status\":\"published-in-journal\",\"subjectAreas\":[],\"tags\":[],\"updatedAt\":\"2024-04-25T17:58:47+00:00\",\"versionOfRecord\":{\"articleIdentity\":\"rs-1901569\",\"link\":\"https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3376604\",\"journal\":{\"identity\":\"ieee-access\",\"isVorOnly\":true,\"title\":\"IEEE Access\"},\"publishedOn\":\"2024-01-01 17:58:47\",\"publishedOnDateReadable\":\"January 1st, 2024\"},\"versionCreatedAt\":\"2022-09-08 16:45:53\",\"video\":\"\",\"vorDoi\":\"10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3376604\",\"vorDoiUrl\":\"https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3376604\",\"workflowStages\":[]},\"version\":\"v1\",\"identity\":\"rs-1901569\",\"journalConfig\":\"researchsquare\"},\"__N_SSP\":true},\"page\":\"/article/[identity]/[[...version]]\",\"query\":{\"redirect\":\"/article/rs-1901569\",\"identity\":\"rs-1901569\",\"version\":[\"v1\"]},\"buildId\":\"WrCJVZZCHTDjtuVLN7oU0\",\"isFallback\":false,\"isExperimentalCompile\":false,\"dynamicIds\":[84888],\"gssp\":true,\"scriptLoader\":[]}","source_license":"CC-BY-4.0","license_restricted":false}