@article {2016e-FraRob,
	title = {Online Leader Selection for Improved Collective Tracking and Formation Maintenance},
	journal = {IEEE Trans. on Control of Network Systems},
	volume = {5},
	year = {2018},
	month = {01/2018},
	pages = {3-13},
	abstract = {The goal of this work is to propose an extension of the popular leader-follower framework for multi-agent collective tracking and formation maintenance in presence of a time- varying leader. In particular, the leader is persistently selected online so as to optimize the tracking performance of an exogenous collective velocity command while also maintaining a desired formation via a (possibly time-varying) communication-graph topology. The effects of a change in the leader identity are theoretically analyzed and exploited for defining a suitable error metric able to capture the tracking performance of the multi- agent group. Both the group performance and the metric design are found to depend upon the spectral properties of a special directed graph induced by the identity of the chosen leader. By exploiting these results, as well as distributed estimation techniques, we are then able to detail a fully-decentralized adaptive strategy able to periodically select online the best leader among the neighbors of the current leader. Numerical simulations show that the application of the proposed technique results in an improvement of the overall performance of the group behavior w.r.t. other possible strategies.},
	keywords = {Leader selection},
	attachments = {https://homepages.laas.fr/afranchi/robotics/sites/default/files/1305.5719v2.pdf},
	author = {Antonio Franchi and Paolo Robuffo Giordano}
}
@conference {2011g-FraBueRob,
	title = {Distributed Online Leader Selection in the Bilateral Teleoperation of Multiple UAVs},
	booktitle = {50th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control },
	year = {2011},
	month = {12/2011},
	pages = {3559-3565},
	address = {Orlando, FL},
	abstract = {For several applications like data collection, surveillance, search and rescue and exploration of wide areas, the use of a group of simple robots rather than a single complex robot has proven to be very effective and promising, and the problem of coordinating a group of agents has received a lot of attention over the last years. In this paper, we consider the challenge of establishing a bilateral force-feedback teleoperation channel between a human operator (the master side) and a remote multi-robot system (the slave side) where a special agent, the leader, is selected and directly controlled by the master. In particular, we study the problem of distributed online optimal leader selection, i.e., how to choose, and possibly change, the leader online in order to maximize some suitable criteria related to the tracking performance of the whole group w.r.t. the master commands. Human/hardware-in-the-loop simulation results with a group of UAVs support the theoretical claims of the paper.},
	keywords = {Decentralized control, Distributed algorithms, Force feedback, Haptics, Leader selection, Multi-robot systems, Teleoperation},
	attachments = {https://homepages.laas.fr/afranchi/robotics/sites/default/files/2011g-FraBueRob-preprint.pdf},
	author = {Antonio Franchi and Heinrich H. B{\"u}lthoff and Paolo Robuffo Giordano}
}
