Cloud-supported circumnavigation

In this thesis, we study the multi-agent circumnavigation problem in which agents are only able to communicate indirectly by exchanging information on a cloud repository. First, we present a solution to the circumnavigation problem when direct communication among agents is allowed. The proposed solution consists in an algorithm that permits the agents to rotate around a target, while forming a regular polygon and keeping a desired distance from it. Moreover, a proof of convergence of the agents to the desired polygon is given. This is our starting point to develop an algorithm in the case where inter-agent communication is substituted with cloud access. We present possible ways to access the cloud and to compute the control inputs of the agents using information stored in the repository, in order to achieve the same formation illustrated in the case with direct communication among agents. Eventually, we show the results obtained with the chosen control law for a multi-agent system simulated in ROS.