Distributed formation control for autonomous robots following desired shapes in noisy environment

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a novel and distributed formation control method for autonomous robots to follow the desired formation while tracking a moving target under influence of the dynamic and noisy environments. In our approach, the desired formations, which include the virtual nodes arranged into specific shapes, are first generated. Then, autonomous robots are controlled by the proposed artificial force fields in order to converge to these virtual nodes without collisions. The stability analysis based on the Lyapunov approach is given. Moreover, a new combination of rotational force field and repulsive force field in designing an obstacle avoidance controller allows the robot to avoid and escape the convex and non convex obstacle shapes. The V-shape and circular shape formations with their advantages are utilized to test the effectiveness of the proposed method.