Distributed control for flocking and group maneuvering of nonholonomic agents

Abstract

Abstract In this paper, we propose a distributed control approach for flocking and group maneuvering of nonholonomic agents, with constrained kinematic properties commonly found in practical systems, such as fixed‐wing unmanned aerial vehicles. Flocking of agents with differential drive kinematics is addressed by introducing a virtual leader–follower mechanism into the Olfati‐Saber's algorithm, which is originally proposed for holonomic agents with double integrator kinematics. Then, group maneuverability of the flock is achieved by superimposing a group motion onto each agent's flocking motion. Moreover, it is proven that speed limits are intrinsically guaranteed by the approach, which renders it more applicable in practical systems. Experimental results in MATLAB and Gazebo, a popular robotic simulator, are presented to evaluate the performance and demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.