Cooperative multiple nonholonomic robots control for moving-target circular formation using backstepping design and tracking differentiator

Abstract

This paper presents the cooperative control design for multiple nonholonomic robots. The control objective for the multi-robot system is to rotate around the moving target with the desired radius and equal angle spacing of inter-robot. The distributed control law in the global coordinate frame is proposed using backstepping techniques to achieve asymptotic convergence to the desired motion. Under the circumstance of the speed of the moving target is unknown to each individual robot, the velocity of the target is estimated by tracking differentiator. Explicit stability and convergence analyses are presented by Lyapunov tools. Simulation examples are given to demonstrate the validity of the proposed control algorithms.