Combined Flocking and Distance-Based Shape Control of Multi-Agent Formations

Abstract

Steepest descent control laws can be used for formation shape control based on specified inter-agent distances, assuming point agents with single integration of the control action to yield velocity. Separately, it is known how to achieve equal velocity for a collection of agents in a formation using consensus ideas, given appropriate properties for the graph describing information flows. This work shows how the two concepts of formation shape control and flocking behavior can be combined when one changes from an agent with single integration to one with double integration.

Cooperative Event-Based Rigid Formation Control

“…A modified distributed event function is proposed, by which the Zeno triggering is strictly excluded for each individual agent. A future topic is to explore possible extensions of the current results on single-integrator models to the double-integrator rigid formation system [54] with event-based control strategy to enable velocity consensus and rigid flocking behavior. (46) with an exponential decay term).…”

Exponential and practical exponential stability of second-order formation control systems

“…The results in [11] are derived from an application of LaSalle's invariance principle to the total energy of the system. Moreover, local convergence of combined rigid formation and flocking control is studied in [12]. The paper [13] presents a comprehensive study on system dynamics for second-order rigid formation systems and establishes a connection between single-integrator and double-integrator formation systems to facilitate stability analysis.…”

Adaptive estimator‐based formation maneuvering control of nonholonomic mobile robots

“…Thus, adaptive technique is employed to estimate the desired maneuvering velocity in controller design. Furthermore, by assuming that the desired constant maneuvering velocity is only known to a set of agents, the desired distance‐based formation shape and an overall group maneuvering velocity is achieved for multiagent systems in other works . In the work of Bai et al, the proposed combined observer‐controller strategy employs two different observers to address the formation maneuvering control problem in the situations that the desired maneuvering velocity is constant and time‐varying respectively.…”

“…Furthermore, by assuming that the desired constant maneuvering velocity is only known to a set of agents, the desired distance-based formation shape and an overall group maneuvering velocity is achieved for multiagent systems in other works. [14][15][16] In the work of Bai et al, 17 the proposed combined observer-controller strategy employs two different observers to address the formation maneuvering control problem in the situations that the desired maneuvering velocity is constant and time-varying respectively. In the work of Bai et al, 18 by assuming the desired velocity is linearly parameterized in the form v(t) = Φ(t) T and the corresponding basis functions (ie Φ(t) T ) are known by all the agents in the group, formation maneuvering is achieved by incorporating relative velocity measurement in addition to relative position information.…”