Orientation Alignment-based Formation Control with Reference Node

Abstract

This paper presents orientation-alignment based formation control of multi-agent dynamic systems with a reference node. The formation control problem studied in this paper is so-called distance-based approach. So, only bearing measurements and pure distance information are used when controlling agents with respect to local coordinate frame. The main idea is to align the orientations of agents to a common direction, which is the direction of the reference node in this paper. While aligning the orientations, agents also attempt to control the absolute distances with respect to neighboring agents. Two problems are presented. First, for a simplicity, the case with static reference node is addressed. Second, using the result of the first case, the case with constantly moving reference node is studied. It is shown that, even with delays in velocity propagation, the desired formation while matching the velocities among agents can be achieved. © 2015 Technical Committee on Control Theory, Chinese Association of Automation.