Flocking, Formation Control, and Path Following for a Group of Mobile Robots

Abstract

This paper presents a multifunctional control law for a group of mobile robots. The controller concurrently integrates flocking, formation control, and path following, as basic components in a navigation framework for mobile sensor networks tasked with searching and harvesting information. The convergence of the closed loop system is ensured using Ryan's invariance principle; the particular tool being necessary due to the use of a nonsmooth artificial potential field for formation control. Simulations and experiments corroborate the theoretical convergence results.