Formal Modeling and Analysis of Hybrid Systems: A Case Study in Multi-robot Coordination

The design of controllers for hybrid systems (i.e. mixed discretecontinuous systems) in a systematic manner remains a challenging task. In this case study, we apply formal modeling to the design of communication and control strategies for a team of autonomous robots to attain speci ed goals in a coordinated manner. The model of linear hybrid automata is used to describe the high-level design, and the veri cation software HyTech is used for symbolic analysis of the description. The goal of the project is to understand tradeo s among various design alternatives by generating constraints among parameters using symbolic analysis. In this paper, we report on di culties in modeling a team of robots using linear hybrid automata, results of analysis experiments, promise of the approach, and challenges for future research.