Distributed coordinated tracking with multiple dynamic leaders for double-integrator agents using only position measurements

Abstract

This paper studies the distributed coordinated tracking problem for a group of autonomous vehicles modeled by double-integrator dynamics with multiple dynamic leaders. The objective is to drive the followers into the convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders under the constraints that the velocities and the accelerations of both the leaders and the followers are not available, the leaders are neighbors of only a subset of the followers, and the followers have only local interaction. When the absolute position measurements of the vehicles are available, we propose a distributed finite-time coordinated tracking algorithm. Theoretical analysis shows that the followers will move into the convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders in finite time if the network topology among the followers is undirected, for each follower there exists at least one leader that has a directed path to the follower, and the parameters in the algorithm are properly chosen. When the absolute position measurements are not available, we propose a distributed adaptive coordinated tracking algorithm using only the relative position measurements. Theoretical analysis shows that the followers will ultimately move into the convex hull spanned by the dynamic leaders under similar conditions to the case where the absolute position measurements are available.