<p>This paper presents a formation shape transition technique of multiple mobile robots in the leader-follower method as a new function that gives flexibility to the formation control of mobile robots with multiple sonars. First, we propose basic shape transition methods for the case of two mobile robots under formation control by the leader-follower method, and then extend the methods to the shape transition of three mobile robots. Since the multiple sonars attached to the mobile robot are located forward, including the left and right sides, there is a constraint on the formation shape feasible by the leader - follower method. In the case of two mobile robots, the follower must be positioned behind the leader. Therefore, there are three shapes of the follower relative to the leader: line, right-back, left-back. In the case of three mobile robots, t hree types of line, zigzag, triangle shapes are considered. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is demonstrated by experiments using real mobile robots.</p>

This paper presents a leader-follower formation control of multiple mobile robots by position-based method using a fisheye camera. A fisheye camera has a wide field of view and recognizes a wide range of objects. In this paper, the fisheye camera is first modeled on spherical coordinates and a position estimation technique is proposed by using an AR marker. This paper furthermore presents a method for estimating the velocity of a leader robot based on a disturbance observer using the obtained position information. The proposed techniques are combined with a formation control based on the virtual structure. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by simulation and experiments using two real mobile robots.

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