Distributed formation control of networked mobile robots from the Udwadia–Kalaba approach

Abstract

In this article, formation control of networked mobile robots is studied. Two control strategies for the leaderless case and the leader‐following case are developed from the Udwadia–Kalaba approach, respectively. Differing from the existing results about formation control, which focus on kinematic models of robots, this article considers dynamic models and obtained a lower‐cost control force. To improve the robustness of the communication network, two distributed formation controllers are designed by establishing distributed estimators. Different from the centralized controllers, the distributed controllers established here only require local information, thus save communication resources and improve system robustness. Finally, some numerical simulations are provided to demonstrate the proposed methods are effective and have lower control cost.

Adaptive leader‐following formation for high‐order nonlinear multi‐agent systems with an uncertain leader system over switching networks

“…The formation problem of MASs aims to design an appropriate control protocol for each agent to drive the agents to their desired states (or output) such that a predefined geometrical shape is achieved and maintained. The formation control has been widely applied to various physical systems, such as mobile robots, 1–3 spacecrafts, 4,5 and unmanned vehicles 6–8 …”