Decentralized formation control in fleets of nonholonomic robots with clustered pattern
Résumé
In this work we consider a fleet of non-holonomic robots that has to realize a formation in a decentralized and collaborative manner. The fleet is clustered due to communication or energy-saving constraints. We assume that each robot continuously measures its relative distance to other robots belonging to the same cluster. Due to this, the robots communicate on a directed connected graph within each cluster. On top of this, in each cluster there exists one robot called leader that receives information from other leaders at discrete instants. In order to realize the formation we propose a two-step strategy. First, the robots compute reference trajectories using a linear consensus protocol. Second, a classical tracking control strategy is used to follow the references. Overall, formation realization is obtained. Numerical simulations with robot teams illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.