Group coordination and cooperative control

Group coordination and cooperative control are topics currently receiving a lot of interest. Coordinating the motion of a group of relatively simple and inexpensive agents can cover a larger operational area and achieve complex tasks exceeding the abilities of a single agent. This enables applications such as teams of robots for de-mining operations, aerospace formation flying for survey, fleets of AUVs for oceanographic mapping, and ships doing coordinated towing operations. Inspired by the progress in the field, a Workshop on Group Coordination and Cooperative Control was organised in Tromsø, Norway, 2006. The objective was to focus on control theoretic challenges that group coordination and cooperation raise, and lay the ground for future research on this. The presentations included recent results and discussions of theoretical challenges, industrial needs, unresolved problems and future research directions. This volume contains the contributions of the workshop. The book covers a wide range of subjects within the area of group coordination and cooperative control, and forms a valuable and up-to-date text on the newer trends in group coordination and cooperative control.