We consider the problem of maximizing the algebraic connectivity of the communication graph in a network of mobile robots by moving them into appropriate positions. We define the Laplacian of the graph as dependent on the pairwise distance between the robots and we approximate the problem as a sequence of Semi-Definite Programs (SDP). We propose a distributed solution consisting of local SDPs which use information only from nearby neighboring robots. We show that the resulting distributed optimization framework leads to feasible subproblems and through its repeated execution, the algebraic connectivity increases monotonically. Moreover, we describe how to adjust the communication load of the robots based on locally computable measures. Numerical simulations show the performance of the algorithm with respect to the centralized solution. (c) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.