Consensus-based formation control using a novel signed protocol

Abstract

This paper aims to achieve formation control over a group of agents, modeled as single integrators, that exchange state information over an undirected graph. The information available to each agent is the sign of its relative displacement with respect to its neighbors, along different axis of a common frame of reference. It is shown that using a consensus protocol that uses only these signs, and not the magnitudes, of the relative positions, the agents may achieve desired formations shapes at various points in the Euclidean space. Additionally, the sign of this relative displacement is weighted, in the control law, by an edge weight. It is shown that consensus is achievable even when some of these edge weights are negative. Simulations vindicate the analytical claims in the paper.