Coordinated formation control of wheeled mobile robots with switching communication topologies

Abstract

The coordinated formation control of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) with directed and switching communication topologies is studied. In particular, together with the non‐holonomic constraint, physical constraints on the velocity, acceleration and angular velocity are taken into account. Through dynamic feedback linearisation, the kinematic model of each robot is transformed into a double‐integrator subject to the physical constraints. Then, coordinated controllers with successive loops are developed for the formation control. The problem caused by the physical constraints is solved by introducing saturations to the control loops. It is proved that each controlled WMR admits an invariant set property, and the formation control objective is achievable as long as a mild joint connectivity condition is satisfied by the communication topology.