The Leader–Follower Dance

This paper deals with the leader-following control of multiple autonomous mobile robots based on a new sensing method. In this method, we have mounted a light source on the leader robot and installed a photovoltaic sensor at the front end of the follower robot. The photovoltaic sensor consisting of seven micro solar modules acts as a light sensor for the follower robot which helps it to move in accordance with the leader robot by detecting the light source of the leader robot. From the relative angle measurement and ultrasonic measurement of the relative distance, angle offset and distance information between leader robot and follower robot can be estimated. Then, based on an intuitive control method for angle steering proposed in this paper, the follower robot can be controlled smoothly to achieve leader following purpose. The new leader-following control method could overcome the disadvantages of other existing formation control methods. The experimental results show that the leader following based on light source tracking is a comparatively efficient, accurate, and cost-effective method.

When the vehicle-mounted sensor is damaged or the external environment is strongly interfered with the working environment, the traditional Robot Leader-Follower control method will not work [1-9]. In view of the above problems, a network-based formation control algorithm is proposed. The research work of the algorithm mainly includes two parts: First, the establishment of a nonlinear incremental control kinematics model for mobile robot formation, research and implementation of formation algorithm Formation process; Second, rewrite the controller under the environment of wireless sensor network. The controller is optimized for the formation control algorithm in the network environment, and redistributes the computing tasks based on the traditional algorithm, a formation retainer is designed to enable the robot formation to adjust the formation in real time The calculation task is not only realized by the Leader, Followers also participate in part of the calculation, reducing the burden and calculation amount of the Leader, thereby making the formation control more coordinated and flexible, and realizes the formation process of the robot.This paper designs a multi robot formation control and tracking algorithm based on improved leader follower in wireless sensor environment. In this algorithm, the robot formation is composed of a leader and several followers. All robots are equipped with multiple sensors, but only the leader robot has the navigation function and enough computing power to implement the proposed algorithm.Experiment shows that under the same conditions, software simulation and physical formation experiments are performed on the standard Leader-Follower control algorithm and proposed algorithm respectively. By comparing and analyzing the effectiveness of the two formation methods, the proposed method has higher stability, smaller error, shorter formation time, and the formation algorithm is feasible.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of the (in)congruence between team leader self-evaluation and follower evaluation about the leader's transformation leadership (TL) on team performance, as well as the conditions under which the impact can be strengthened or weakened.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a survey method to collect data from matched sales team leaders and sales team members in 81 teams. A multi-level polynomial regression analysis was conducted.FindingsTeam performance was higher in teams with balanced or high TL than with balanced or low TL. Among the teams with incongruence, no difference was found between leader underestimation and leader overestimation. TL congruence plays a moderating role in the relationship between team follower evaluation of TL and team performance, such that the relationship is stronger when team leader self-evaluation and follower evaluation are congruent than incongruent.Originality/valueThis study extends the authors' current understanding of TL literature by combining and contrasting the different perceptions of TL from both the leaders themselves and the followers towards leaders. The findings highlight the importance of congruence versus incongruence rather than just the high or low levels of follower TL evaluation. It provides a more complete understanding of the TL and team performance relationship than the traditional view that promotes a linear relationship between TL and performance.

Leader–follower decentralized optimal control for large population hexarotors with tilted propellers: A Stackelberg game approach

Robot control is currently very helpful for human work to be more effective and efficient both in completion time and in mitigating the risk of work accidents that may occur. This study determines the direction of the robot so that it does not collide with each other and reach the target. Controlling the swarm robot with the leader-follower approach uses Fuzzy Logic Type 2-Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) to optimise the performance of the swarm robot. The Fuzzy Logic Method Type 2 measures the direction decisions of the leader robot and follower robot using a rule base of 8 rules; the leader-follower robot is given a target. Achieving targets using PSO, the PSO process looks for potential solutions with quality references to reach the target as the optimal solution. The leader-follower modelling has been modelled using kinematic equations and controlling the movement of the robot's trajectory in the form of a simulation that has been carried out. The measurement results based on robot data in an open environment are 110 data, and a square environment is 1342. The measurement results based on robot time in a four-obstacle environment have the fastest time of 10.83 seconds and the longest time environment in an oval environment of 134.9 seconds. The measurement results are based on resources in a free environment of 10.6 kb and a square environment of 49.1 kb. Fuzzy Logic Type 2-PSO has a higher time indicating a stable speed result and judging from the trajectory in avoiding obstacles, and the leader-follower robot has a faster response.

This research examined the development of the combination of virtual structure and leader-follower as an obstacle avoidance method in the formation control of a mobile robot. The formation of the robots are designed with the Separation Bearing Control (SBC) approach between the leader robot (RL) and the virtual robot (RV). The virtual robot is used as a virtual follower and a reference trajectory for the follower robot (RF). When the follower robot detects an obstacle, the follower robot trajectory is adjusted using a trajectory planner for obstacle avoidance. After passing the obstacle, the follower robot will track its position back in formation using virtual robot position and heading as reference. Leader robot and follower are perturbed by disturbances. In order to ensure the achievement of small error tracking, a controller is designed using the integration of kinematic and dynamics controllers with disturbance observer. The kinematic and dynamics controllers are designed using input-output linearisation (IOL) method and computed torque control (CTC). The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by the simulation result.Keywords: CTC, leader follower, obstacle avoidance, SBC, virtual structure.

Bligh, Riggio, Introduction to Exploring Distance in Leader-Follower Relationships: When Near is Far and Far is Near. Part I: Foundations and Definitions of Distance. Lisk, Lewandowski, Foundation of Distance. Shamir, Notes on Distance and Leadership. Part 2: The Impact of Distance on Leader-Follower Relations. Kahai, Leading in a Digital Age: What's Different, Issues Raised, And What We Know. Reichard, Serrano, Wefald, Engaging Followers At a Distance: Leadership Approaches That Work. Schyns, The Role of Distance in Leader-Member Exchange (LMX). Antonakis, Jacquart, The Far Side of Leadership: Rather Difficult to Face. Part 3: Moving Forward Emerging Concepts and Extensions of Leader-Follower Distance. Eagly, Women as Leaders: Paths Through the Labyrinth.Rast, Gaffney, Hogg, The Tyranny of Normative Distance: A Social Identity Account of the Exercise of Power by Remote Leaders. Razin, Kark, The Apple Does Not Fall Far From the Tree: Steve Jobs's Leadership as Simultaneously Distant and Close. Hollander, American Presidential Leadership: Leader Credit, Follower Inclusion, and Obama's Turn.

This paper addresses a critical challenge in the field of attitude control of fixed-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), focusing on the leader and multi-followers′ problem. It introduces Twin Delayed Deep Deterministic Policy Gradient (TD3) based on Cascade-forward ANN networks approach to control the leader and multiple followers in autonomous navigation and path tracking. The TD3 component is initially trained off-line and then applied in real-time. The control system incorporates a novel adaptive Laplacian consensus protocol using an undirected communication graph model that adjusts inter-UAV connection weights in real time based on relative positions. This approach was implemented on a leader-follower formation consisting of one leader and three follower UAVs. The paper includes a stability analysis of the proposed method, demonstrating the system′s overall stability. The effectiveness of this approach is validated through a MATLAB simulation which demonstrates that the TD3 based on ANN (Cascade-forward networks), which is used to train the actor and the twin critics networks, has superior performance with low tracking error, good formation keeping during aggressive maneuvers, and reduced control surface oscillations. The application exhibited improved adherence to the prescribed distance during sharp turns, with fewer formation deviations at the trajectory end point. The findings result verify that combining strategies leads to the formation integrity. The TD3 based on ANN which uses Cascade-forward networks implementation offers also significant improvement in stability, accuracy, and control efficiency for practical UAV formation control applications.

How and when do leader prototypical implicit followership theories (IFTs) facilitate follower organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB)? In line with behavioural confirmation theory, we propose that leaders who have a higher level of prototypical IFTs provide their followers with more support, which subsequently facilitates follower OCB. Furthermore, we argue that leader prototypical IFTs shape both leader support and subsequent follower OCB not only independently but also in conjunction with follower prototypical IFTs. We collected survey data from 137 leader - follower dyads in China. Our preliminary results showed that the prototypical IFTs of leaders were positively related to leader support, which in turn was positively related to follower OCB; however, the sole predictive effect of leader prototypical IFTs became nonsignificant when leader-follower congruence in prototypical IFTs was included as a predictor. The results, which were obtained using polynomial regression and response surface analysis, showed that when leaders and followers held congruent prototypical IFTs, a high level of prototypical IFTs was related to higher levels of both leader support and follower OCB. Therefore, leaders’ IFTs, followers’ IFTs, and the congruence between these factors should all be taken into account in attempts to facilitate follower OCB.

Summary A leader's legitimacy from appointment or election has been found to have distinctive effects on leader-follower relations in an American context. To examine this process further, an experiment was conducted with 21 groups of male college students organized into groups of four. Ss were assigned a group decision-making task regarding urban problems. After an initial interaction period, in seven groups for each condition, leaders were either appointed by the E, elected by the group, or not formally designated. Groups were observed throughout by two observers independently, from behind a one-way mirror. Significant effects were found in the observed interactions, and on followers' ratings of leaders on a postinteraction questionnaire. As hypothesized, elected leaders were seen by followers as more responsive to followers' needs, more interested in the group task, and more competent than leaders who were appointed. Elected leaders were considered more favorably as future leaders, when contributing to ...

Leader–follower relationships are a cornerstone of leadership research. Considering recent developments that point to emotions as key determinants of dyadic relationships, we shift the focus of this literature to the episodic interplay of leader emotional expressions and follower emotional reactions for the emergence of high‐quality interactions. Specifically, we develop an emotional entrainment perspective stating that the trajectory of leader emotional expressions and corresponding follower emotional reactions over the course of a day gives rise to follower perceptions of their interaction quality with their leader. We glean additional insights by examining follower attachment styles as a moderator. Results of an experience sampling study (Nemployees = 72, Ndays = 479) demonstrate that emotional entrainment of high‐activated emotions (joy and fear) predicts end‐of‐day interaction quality contingent on followers' (avoidant and anxious) attachment styles. Future avenues for research on the emergence of high‐quality leader–follower relationships are discussed.

Purpose– The current paper aims to argue that it is important for conflict management research to start focusing on leader–follower conflict as a “special case” of conflict because the relationship between leaders and followers is, by definition, characterized by divergence of interest and, second, because it is asymmetric in terms of power and vulnerability. Moreover, it is argued that conflict management research should start to examine the various behaviors that people engage in as a response to conflict, in a broader sense, than has been done until now. Research on conflict management increasingly recognizes the significance of interpersonal relations in the workplace.Design/methodology/approach– As a case in point, a survey study among 97 Dutch police officers is presented. Leaders’ conflict management behaviors as assessed by followers is measured. In addition, followers’ experienced interactional justice and the extent to which they indicated that they would engage in negative and/or positive gossip about their leader was measured.Findings– Results demonstrate that more forcing and avoiding leader conflict management behavior was related to more negative and less positive gossip about leaders. Moreover, more problem-solving and yielding leader conflict management behavior was related to less negative and more positive gossip. All relationships between leader conflict management behavior and follower gossip were mediated by followers’ experienced interactional justice.Originality/value– It is hoped that the findings put research on the broader implications of interactional justice in leader–follower interactions, and on gossip, on the research agenda of conflict researchers.

To steer a group of agents to maneuver with the desired collective forms, this article studies the affine formation maneuver control of high-order multiagent systems using a two-layered leader-follower strategy, in which agents are divided into three types: first leader, second leader group, and followers. The first leader will decide the whole formation's maneuver parameters, and the second leader group will keep the desired relative positions with respect to the first leader. The followers aim at moving to the desired positions affinely localized by the leaders. The main feature of this two-layered leader-follower strategy is that the information interaction from the first leader to the second leader group can be realized via wireless communication, and only the measurements of local relative position and its finite-order time-derivatives are needed for the followers. To achieve the control objective under the given constraints, the distributed control algorithms are designed for the second leader group and followers, in which the backstepping, distributed estimation, $PD^m$, and adaptive gain design techniques are employed. Finally, a simulation example with obstacle avoidance is provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithms.

Although scholars have paid increasing attention to people with callings, relationships between leader's calling and follower's job attitudes have been understudied. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between leader calling and follower job satisfaction, and mediators and a moderator on the relationship. We hypothesized that leader calling would be positively related to follower job satisfaction via follower's perceived transformational leadership and occupational self-efficacy and that the two mediators would be positively related. As a boundary condition, we tested a moderating role of job crafting on the positive relationship between leader calling and follower occupational self-efficacy. To examine the hypotheses, we conducted two survey studies using a sample of 242 Korean working adults (Study 1) and a sample of 221 American working adults in diverse industries (Study 2). We found a positive relationship between leader calling and follower job satisfaction (Study 1) and a significant mediating effect of transformational leadership on the relationship (Studies 1, 2). In both studies, follower occupational self-efficacy mediated the link between transformational leadership and follower job satisfaction rather than directly mediating the relationship between leader calling and follower job satisfaction. Also, when followers were highly involved in job crafting (Study 1) and cognitive crafting (Study 2), their occupational self-efficacy did not vary depending on the level of leader calling. Interestingly, the relationship between leader calling and follower occupational self-efficacy was negative when followers showed low levels of job crafting and cognitive crafting. We discuss the implications of these results, study limitations, and practical suggestions for future research.

Leader–follower guaranteed-cost consensualization for high-order linear swarm systems with switching topologies