Multi-Robot Coordination

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Overview

Multi-robot coordination studies how robots with shared or complementary goals work together in settings such as exploration, transport, warehouses, and aerial-ground missions. Approaches include task allocation and scheduling, joint or distributed motion planning, formation and feedback control, and learned policies that use local observations, communication, or demonstrations. Work increasingly combines these methods with safety constraints, uncertainty-aware replanning, and language or vision models, with evaluation spanning simulation, benchmarks, and physical robot teams. A central challenge is balancing the efficiency and global awareness of centralized planning against the scalability, resilience, and limited communication of decentralized teams, especially when robots or environments differ from those seen in training.

Latest papers

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328 papers50 papers in the last four weeks, up 22% on the four weeks before. 0.3% of all new papers.

  1. Semantic Area Graph Reasoning for Multi-Robot Language-Guided Search

    Apr 17, 2026Ruiyang Wang, Hao-Lun Hsu, Jiwoo Kim +1Multi-Robot SystemsLarge Language Model-Based Robot Planning

  2. Zero-Shot Scalable Resilience in UAV Swarms: A Decentralized Imitation Learning Framework with Physics-Informed Graph Interactions

    Apr 17, 2026Huan Lin, Lianghui DingMulti-Robot SystemsSwarm Robotics

    Institute of Image Communication and Network Engineering, School of Integrated Circuits, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China

  3. Safe and Energy-Aware Multi-Robot Density Control via PDE-Constrained Optimization for Long-Duration Autonomy

    Apr 16, 2026Longchen Niu, Andrew Nasif, Gennaro NotomistaRobotic ControlMulti-Robot Systems

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada

  4. NeuroMesh: A Unified Neural Inference Framework for Decentralized Multi-Robot Collaboration

    Apr 16, 2026Yang Zhou, Yash Shetye, Long Quang +8Efficient Neural Network InferenceMulti-Robot Systems

    New York University, New York, USA · U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD 20783, USA · Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, USA +1

  5. Capability-Aware Heterogeneous Control Barrier Functions for Decentralized Multi-Robot Safe Navigation

    Apr 14, 2026Joonkyung Kim, Yanze Zhang, Wenhao Luo +1Safe Robot NavigationControl Barrier Functions

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Texas A&M University · Department of Computer Science, University of Illinois Chicago

  6. PAINT: Partner-Agnostic Intent-Aware Cooperative Transport with Legged Robots

    Apr 14, 2026Zhihao Cao, Tianxu An, Chenhao Li +2Multi-Agent CollaborationLegged Robotics

    Robotic Systems Lab; ETH Zurich, Switzerland · Computational Robotics Lab; ETH Zurich, Switzerland · ETH AI Center; Switzerland

  7. VULCAN: Vision-Language-Model Enhanced Multi-Agent Cooperative Navigation for Indoor Fire-Disaster Response

    Apr 14, 2026Shengding Liu, Qiben YanSearch-and-Rescue RoboticsMulti-Robot Coordination

    Computer Science & Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA

  8. DeCoNav: Dialog enhanced Long-Horizon Collaborative Vision-Language Navigation

    Apr 14, 2026Sunyao Zhou, Yunzi Wu, Tianhang Wang +5Multi-Agent CoordinationVision-Language Navigation

    Institute of Artificial Intelligence (TeleAI), China Telecom · Fudan University · Tongji University

  9. Dynamic Multi-Robot Task Allocation under Uncertainty and Communication Constraints: A Game-Theoretic Approach

    Apr 13, 2026Maria G. Mendoza, Pan-Yang Su, Bryce L. Ferguson +1Multi-Robot Task AllocationMulti-Agent Resource Allocation

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States · Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, United States · Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, United States

  10. Angle-based Localization and Rigidity Maintenance Control for Multi-Robot Networks

    Apr 13, 2026J. Francisco Presenza, Leonardo J. Colombo, Juan I. Giribet +1Robotic ControlRobot Localization

    Institute of Engineering Technology and Sciences “Hilario Fernández Long” (CONICET-UBA) - Av. Paseo Colón 850, C1063ACV, Buenos Aires, Argentina. · Centre for Automation and Robotics (CSIC-UPM) - Ctra. M300 Campo Real, Km 0.200, Arganda del Rey, 28500, Madrid, Spain. · Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory (UDESA) and CONICET - Vito Dumas 284, B1644BID, Victoria, Argentina.

  11. BIND-USBL: Bounding IMU Navigation Drift using USBL in Heterogeneous ASV-AUV Teams

    Apr 13, 2026Pranav Kedia, Rajini Makam, Heiko Hamann +1Autonomous Underwater NavigationCooperative Localization

    Dept of Computer and Information Science, University of Konstanz, Germany · Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, University of Konstanz, Germany · Dept of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India

  12. Federated Single-Agent Robotics: Multi-Robot Coordination Without Intra-Robot Multi-Agent Fragmentation

    Apr 13, 2026Xue Qin, Simin Luan, John See +2Multi-Robot CoordinationMulti-Robot Systems

    School of Software, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China · School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Harbin, China · School of Mathematical and Computer Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Malaysia Campus, Malaysia +1

  13. HECTOR: Human-centric Hierarchical Coordination and Supervision of Robotic Fleets under Continual Temporal Tasks

    Apr 13, 2026Shen Wang, Yinhang Luo, Jie Li +1Multi-Robot CoordinationHuman-Robot Interaction

    the School of Advanced Manufacturing and Robotics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China · National University of Defense Technology, Hunan 410073, China

  14. PRoID: Predicted Rate of Information Delivery in Multi-Robot Exploration and Relaying

    Apr 12, 2026Seungchan Kim, Seungjae Baek, Micah Corah +3Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute · Ulsan National Institute of Science & Technology · Colorado School of Mines +2

  15. ABot-Claw: A Foundation for Persistent, Cooperative, and Self-Evolving Robotic Agents

    Apr 11, 2026Dongjie Huo, Haoyun Liu, Guoqing Liu +10Self-Evolving AgentsLanguage-Conditioned Robot Control

    AMAP CV Lab Alibaba Group

  16. Exploiting Aggregate Programming in a Multi-Robot Service Prototype

    Apr 8, 2026Giorgio Audrito, Andrea Basso, Daniele Bortoluzzi +3Service RoboticsMulti-Robot Systems

    Dipartimento di Informatica, Universita' di Torino · Università di Torino, Turin, Italy · MITO Technology +1

  17. CoEnv: Driving Embodied Multi-Agent Collaboration via Compositional Environment

    Apr 7, 2026Li Kang, Yutao Fan, Rui Li +11Multi-Robot CoordinationMulti-Task Robotic Manipulation

    Shanghai Jiao Tong University · Shanghai AI Laboratory · Harbin Institute of Technology +6

  18. ROSClaw: A Hierarchical Semantic-Physical Framework for Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Collaboration

    Apr 6, 2026Rongfeng Zhao, Xuanhao Zhang, Zhaochen Guo +4VLMs for RoboticsCross-Embodiment Robot Learning

    Shanghai Research Institute for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Shanghai 201210, China · National Key Laboratory of Autonomous Intelligent Unmanned Systems (Tongji University), Shanghai 201210, China · Frontiers Science Center for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Shanghai 201210, China +1

  19. Resilient Decentralized Ergodic Coverage for Scalable Multi-Robot Systems in Unknown Time-Varying Environments

    Apr 5, 2026Maria G. Mendoza, Victoria Marie Tuck, Chinmay Maheshwari +1Multi-Robot SystemsExploration-Exploitation Tradeoff

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA · Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21209, USA +1

  20. Element-based Formation Control: a Unified Perspective from Continuum Mechanics

    Apr 5, 2026Kun Cao, Lihua XieMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Control Science and Engineering, College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China · Shanghai Institute of Intelligent Science and Technology, National Key Laboratory of Autonomous Intelligent Unmanned Systems, and Frontiers Science Center for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100816, China · School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798

  21. DC-Ada: Reward-Only Decentralized Sensor Adaptation for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Teams

    Apr 5, 2026Saad AlqithamiGradient-Free OptimizationRobot Policy Adaptation

    Department of Computer Science, Al-Baha University, Albaha 65779 Saudi Arabia

  22. Safety-Critical Centralized Nonlinear MPC for Cooperative Payload Transportation by Two Quadrupedal Robots

    Apr 3, 2026Ruturaj S. Sambhus, Yicheng Zeng, Kapi Ketan Mehta +2Multi-Robot Cargo TransportationNonlinear MPC

    R.S. Sambhus, Y. Zeng, K. K. Mehta, and K. Akbari Hamed are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA · J. Kim is with The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA

  23. Enhancing Multi-Robot Exploration Using Probabilistic Frontier Prioritization with Dirichlet Process Gaussian Mixtures

    Apr 3, 2026John Lewis Devassy, Meysam Basiri, Mário A. T. Figueiredo +1Dirichlet Process Mixture ModelsMulti-Robot Exploration

    Institute for Systems and Robotics / LARSyS and Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon 1049-001, Portugal · Instituto de Telecomunicações and Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisbon 1049-001, Portugal

  24. PRO-SPECT: Probabilistically Safe Scalable Planning for Energy-Aware Coordinated UAV-UGV Teams in Stochastic Environments

    Apr 2, 2026Roger Fowler, Cahit Ikbal Er, Benjamin Johnsenberg +1Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Coordination

    Khoury Department of Computer Sciences, Northeastern University, Boston, MA · The Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Inc., Cambridge, MA · Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, MA +1

  25. Go Big or Go Home: Simulating Mobbing Behavior with Braitenbergian Robots

    Apr 1, 2026Elaheh SanoubariMulti-Robot CoordinationSwarm Robotics

  26. Diffusion-Guided Cooperative Policy Learning for Target Tracking Based on Underwater Mobile Agent Networks

    Mar 31, 2026Jiaao Ma, Chuan Lin, Guangjie Han +3Cooperative MARLMulti-Robot Coordination

    Software College, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China · Key Laboratory of Maritime Intelligent Network Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Hohai University · College of Computer Science and Software Engineering, Hohai University, Nanjing, 210013, China +1

  27. Advancing Multi-Robot Networks via MLLM-Driven Sensing, Communication, and Computation: A Comprehensive Survey

    Mar 31, 2026Hyun Jong Yang, Howon Lee, Kyuhong Shim +10Multi-Agent OrchestrationMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Ajou University, Suwon, South Korea · Department of Intelligent Software, College of Computing and Informatics, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, South Korea +4

  28. A Classification of Heterogeneity in Uncrewed Vehicle Swarms and the Effects of Its Inclusion on Overall Swarm Resilience

    Mar 30, 2026Abhishek Joshi, Abhishek Phadke, Tianxing Chu +1Swarm RoboticsMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Computer Science, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas 78412 · School of Engineering and Computing, Christopher Newport University, Newport News, Virginia 23608 · Conrad Blucher Institute for Surveying and Science, Texas A&M University–Corpus Christi, Corpus Christi, Texas 78412

  29. Multi-AUV Ad-hoc Networks-Based Multi-Target Tracking Based on Scene-Adaptive Embodied Intelligence

    Mar 28, 2026Kai Tian, Jialun Wang, Chuan Lin +4Multi-Object TrackingUnderwater Robotics

    Software College, Northeastern University, Shenyang, China. · Key Laboratory of Maritime Intelligent Network Information Technology, Ministry of Education, Hohai University.

  30. CREST: Constraint-Release Execution for Multi-Robot Warehouse Shelf Rearrangement

    Mar 27, 2026Jiaqi Tan, Yudong Luo, Sophia Huang +2Multi-Robot SystemsRobotics

    School of Computing Science, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC V5A 1S6, Canada · HEC Montréal, Montréal, QC H3T 2A7, Canada · Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907 USA