Formation types of a flock of 1-trailer mobile robots

Abstract

In this paper, we control the motion of a flock of 1-trailer systems. A set of artificial potential field functions is proposed for split/rejoin of the flock of 1-trailer robots via the Lyapunov-based control scheme for the avoidance of obstacles and attraction to their designated targets. A leader follower strategy is used to accomplish the desired formation and reformation of the flock. The flock maintains a prescribed formation, splits and maneuvers around obstacles and then returns to its original position in the prescribed formation. The various formations shapes that we shall consider are the line, column, arrowhead and the double platoon. The effectiveness of the proposed control laws are demonstrated through computer simulations.