10 research outputs found
Formation control on Jordan curves based on noisy proximity measurements
The paradigmatic formation control problem of steering a multi-agent system
towards a balanced circular formation has been the subject of extensive studies
in the control engineering community. Indeed, this is due to the fact that it
shares several features with relevant applications such as distributed
environmental monitoring or fence-patrolling. However, these applications may
also present some relevant differences from the ideal setting such as the curve
on which the formation must be achieved not being a circle, or the measurements
being neither ideal nor as a continuous information flow. In this work, we
attempt to fill this gap between theory and applications by considering the
problem of steering a multi-agent system towards a balanced formation on a
generic closed curve and under very restrictive assumptions on the information
flow amongst the agents. We tackle this problem through an estimation and
control strategy that borrows tools from interval analysis to guarantee the
robustness that is required in the considered scenario
A Cyclic Pursuit Framework for Networked Mobile Agents Based on Vector Field Approach
This paper proposes a pursuit formation control scheme for a network of double-integrator mobile agents based on a vector field approach. In a leaderless architecture, each agent pursues another one via a cyclic topology to achieve a regular polygon formation. On the other hand, the agents are exposed to a rotational vector field such that they rotate around the vector field centroid, while they keep the regular polygon formation. The main problem of existing approaches in the literature for cyclic pursuit of double-integrator multiagent systems is that under those approaches, the swarm angular velocity and centroid are not controllable based on missions and agents capabilities. However, by employing the proposed vector field approach in this paper, while keeping a regular polygon formation, the swarm angular velocity and centroid can be determined arbitrary. The obtained results can be extended to achieve elliptical formations with cyclic pursuit as well. Simulation results for a team of eight mobile agents verify the accuracy of the proposed control scheme
Mobile Formation Coordination and Tracking Control for Multiple Non-holonomic Vehicles
This paper addresses forward motion control for trajectory tracking and
mobile formation coordination for a group of non-holonomic vehicles on SE(2).
Firstly, by constructing an intermediate attitude variable which involves
vehicles' position information and desired attitude, the translational and
rotational control inputs are designed in two stages to solve the trajectory
tracking problem. Secondly, the coordination relationships of relative
positions and headings are explored thoroughly for a group of non-holonomic
vehicles to maintain a mobile formation with rigid body motion constraints. We
prove that, except for the cases of parallel formation and translational
straight line formation, a mobile formation with strict rigid-body motion can
be achieved if and only if the ratios of linear speed to angular speed for each
individual vehicle are constants. Motion properties for mobile formation with
weak rigid-body motion are also demonstrated. Thereafter, based on the proposed
trajectory tracking approach, a distributed mobile formation control law is
designed under a directed tree graph. The performance of the proposed
controllers is validated by both numerical simulations and experiments