Distributed regular polygon formation control and obstacle avoidance for non‐holonomic wheeled mobile robots with directed communication topology. Issue 9 (6th April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Wang, Zhuping; Wang, Lei; Zhang, Hao; Chen, Qijun; Liu, Jingcheng
• Is Part Of: IET control theory & applications. Volume 14:Issue 9(2020)
• Page Start: 1113
• Page End: 1122
• Publication Date: 2020-04-06
• Subjects: collision avoidance -- observers -- multi‐robot systems -- distributed control -- mobile robots -- directed graphs -- robot dynamics; distributed regular polygon formation control -- obstacle avoidance problem -- multirobot systems -- leader–follower structure -- networked multirobot system -- distributed state observer -- follower robots -- distributed obstacle avoidance -- improved state transformation -- nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots -- observed states -- formation control objectives -- control laws -- directed communication topology; Control theory -- Periodicals; Automatic control -- Periodicals; 629.8312
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-cta.2019.0210
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1751-8644

Abstract

Abstract : This study investigates distributed regular polygon formation control and obstacle avoidance problem for multi‐robot systems with the leader–follower structure. The communication topology of the networked multi‐robot system is modelled by a directed graph. Firstly, a distributed state observer is designed such that only part of the follower robots need to know the desired distance between the leader and followers. Based on the state observer, distributed obstacle avoidance can be realised. Then, an improved state transformation is designed such that the formation control of multiple non‐holonomic wheeled mobile robots with observed states can be converted into a consensus‐like problem. Based on the state transformation, novel controllers are proposed to achieve the formation control objectives. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed control laws is verified by simulations.