Leader-Following Consensus for a Class of Multiple Robot Manipulators over Switching Networks by Distributed Position Feedback Control

Abstract

The leader-following consensus problem for a class of multiple robot manipulators subject to a static and connected network has been studied recently by a distributed position feedback control law. In this technical note, we will further study the same problem under a switching network satisfying the jointly connected condition. Since the switching network can be disconnected at every time instant, the approach in the literature does not apply to the problem in this technical note. To deal with the disconnected switching network, we adopt the adaptive distributed observer approach to synthesize a distributed position feedback control law. It turns out that this control law solves the leader-following consensus problem for the class of multiple robot manipulators. The effectiveness of this new result is validated by an example.