Instant Orientation Correction Strategy: Holonomic System-Based Decentralized Control for Nonholonomic Agents

Abstract

This study proposes an instant orientation correction strategy to perform an orientation alignment-based formation control applicable to nonholonomic agents. Generally, an orientation alignment-based formation control cannot be applied to nonholonomic agents with orientation constraints because it is originally a protocol for holonomic agents. Therefore, we improved the orientation alignment-based formation control using an instant orientation correction strategy that modifies the local frame of the nonholonomic agents. To examine the effect of the proposed method, simulations and experiments using representative parameters were conducted for unicycle-modeled nonholonomic agents. As a result, nonholonomic agents could execute a holonomic system-based control law by applying the proposed correction strategy. The simulation confirmed the change in the convergence time and the cumulative error of the angular velocity according to the number of agents and the updated step size of the local desired position. As the updated step size increased, the cumulative error of the angular velocity tended to increase (0.3 rad/s~0.4rad/s). Also, the convergence time was not dramatically affected by the update step size and the number of the agents (~400 converge step).