A connectivity preserving rendezvous for unicycle agents with heterogenous input disturbances. Issue 10 (July 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Li, Ping; Xu, Shengyuan; Chen, Weimin; Wei, Yunliang; Zhang, Zhengqiang
• Is Part Of: Journal of the Franklin Institute. Volume 355:Issue 10(2018)
• Page Start: 4248
• Page End: 4267
• Publication Date: 2018-07
• Subjects: Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals; Patents -- United States -- Periodicals; 505
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jfranklin.2018.04.006
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0016-0032

Abstract

Abstract: This paper studies the rendezvous strategy for a group of unicycle systems with connectivity preservation and collision avoidance. Based on the method of potential functions, a novel distributed control algorithm is proposed for all unicycles. By tuning the design parameters, the unicycles finally aggregate so that the average of the distances is bounded by a pre-specified positive number. It is proved that the connectivity of a minimum spanning tree in the initial topology is guaranteed. The result is then extended to multiple unicycles with heterogenous input disturbances. Potential function is further modified to handle the disturbances. Illustrative example is presented to show the improvements and effectiveness of the proposed controller.