SDP-Based Robust Formation-Containment Coordination of Swarm Robotic Systems with Input Saturation

From Springer Nature via Jisc Publications RouterHistory: received 2020-08-24, accepted 2021-03-12, registration 2021-03-12, pub-electronic 2021-04-19, online 2021-04-19, pub-print 2021-05Publication status: PublishedFunder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000266; Grant(s): EP/R026084/1Funder: Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100000266; Grant(s): EP/P01366X/1Funder: Horizon 2020; doi: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100007601; Grant(s): 899520Abstract: There are many potential applications of swarm robotic systems in real-world scenarios. In this paper, formation-containment controller design for single-integrator and double-integrator swarm robotic systems with input saturation is investigated. The swarm system contains two types of robots—leaders and followers. A novel control protocol and an implementation algorithm are proposed that enable the leaders to achieve the desired formation via semidefinite programming (SDP) techniques. The followers then converge into the convex hull formed by the leaders simultaneously. In contrast to conventional consensus-based formation control methods, the relative formation reference signal is not required in the real-time data transmission, which provides greater feasibility for implementation on hardware platforms. The effectiveness of the proposed formation-containment control algorithm is demonstrated with both numerical simulations and experiments using real robots that utilize the miniature mobile robot, Mona