Distributed position estimation approach for multiagent formation with size scaling

Abstract

AbstractThis work studies formation control of multiagent systems (MASs) where its formation size is scalable via a scaling factor (scalable formation). Past works on scalable formation are limited to either fixed undirected graph or fixed directed graph with p‐rooted graph condition. This work proposes a new distributed algorithm for scalable formation based on a distributed observer to estimate agents' positions. The new algorithm results in a new matrix, a Laplacian matrix with additional diagonal terms, where the desired formation pattern is embedded in this diagonal terms. With the proposed algorithm, only spanning tree condition is needed as the necessary and sufficient condition to achieve the scalable formation. Numerical examples are shown to illustrate the proposed method.