Decentralized Leader-Follower Flocking of Multiple Non-Holonomic Agents

Abstract

In this paper, we study the cohesive flocking problem of multiple non-holonomic agents governed by extended second-order unicycle dynamics, such as robotic fish. Consider the system with only one leader. Combining the consensus algorithm and attraction/repulsion functions, a distributed flocking algorithm is presented for multiple robotic fish to complete the cohesive flocking task. According to LaSalle-Krasovskii invariance principle, the proposed algorithm enables followers to asymptotically track the leader's velocity and approach the equilibrium distances with their neighbors, provided that the initial interaction network among the followers is an undirected connected graph, and there exists at least one follower having a leader neighbor at the initial time. During the evolutionary process, the connectivity of the communication network can be preserved due to the effect of the potential function. Finally, a simulation example is given to verify the proposed theoretical analysis.