Formation control of multiple mobile robots utilising synchronisation approach

Abstract

In this paper, a new synchronous control rule is proposed for multiple mobile robot trajectories tracking while maintaining time varying formation. Each robot is controlled to track the desired path while its motion is synchronised with the two neighbouring robots to perform and maintain a desired time-varying formation. The dynamic model of the wheeled mobile robot is derived and divided into a translational and rotational dynamic model. A new synchronous translational controller is proposed to guarantee the asymptotic stability of both position and synchronisation errors. A simulation result of 20 robots has been conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed synchronous controller in the time-varying formation tasks.