Abstract
In this paper, a stable leader-following formation control for multiple non-holonomic mobile robot systems using only limited on-board sensor information is proposed. The control can be used for the conventional single leader – single follower (SLSF) or for novel two leaders – single follower (TLSF) schemes. The control algorithm utilizes estimations of the leaders' translational and angular accelerations in a simple form to reduce the measurement of indirect information. Simulation results show that the TLSF scheme can suppress the oscillation and damping in formation of large robot teams.
Highlights
In recent years, control and coordination of multi‐agent systems has emerged as a topic of major interest (Liu, B.; Chu, T.; Wang, L.; & Xie, G., 2008)
This is partly due to broad applications of multi‐agent systems in cooperative control of unmanned vehicles, formation control of swarms, where collective motions may emerge from groups of simple individuals through limited interactions
The problem to be investigated is formulated as follows: a group of n non‐holonomic mobile robots are controlled to follow a group leader R0, which moves along a desired trajectory, and to maintain a desired form implicitly defined by the relative distance and angle between each follower and its leader or the relative distances between a follower and its two leaders, as well as the relative angle with one of those two leaders
Summary
Control and coordination of multi‐agent systems has emerged as a topic of major interest (Liu, B.; Chu, T.; Wang, L.; & Xie, G., 2008). Other researchers have proposed the use of a second‐order model of the robot for SLSF scheme and used feedback, robust and adaptive control methods & Hu, X., 2008), which presents dynamic feedback controllers that do not require direct measurement of the leader’s speed, but instead a method to predict that speed Their scheme of SLSF, which theoretically does not depend on the number of robots, is still not scalable for a big group of robots due to the accumulated errors and resulting oscillations. This paper proposes a new stable leader‐follower formation control algorithm for multiple non‐holonomic mobile robots systems, which utilizes both translational acceleration and angular acceleration to control the damping/oscillations and eliminates the need to measure the leader’s velocity.
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