Predictive‐based optimal automatic formation control of mobile vehicles

Abstract

In recent years, formation control has received a great deal of attention as one of the most interesting issues in multiple mobile robots systems. In variable formation control systems, multiple mobile vehicles can form an appropriate formation from a list of possible formations, such that all mobile vehicles can pass even when the width of the course is narrow, and simultaneously the vehicles maintain a set distance between the course and each vehicle. This paper presents a predictive-based automatic formation control. In our formation control system, a unique formation is determined from feasible formations at any given sampling point. This control is formulated by its corresponding mixed-integer quadratic programing by introducing binary variables that are used to specify the formation. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is verified by applying two-wheeled mobile vehicles through simulations and experiments.