Related papers: Robust Formation Control in SE(3) for Tree-Graph S…
We show in this paper that a small subset of agents of a formation of n agents in Euclidean space can control the position and orientation of the entire formation. We consider here formations tasked with maintaining inter-agent distances at…
In this work, we consider a group of robots working together to manipulate a rigid object to track a desired trajectory in $SE(3)$. The robots do not know the mass or friction properties of the object, or where they are attached to the…
Despite the great success of using gradient-based controllers to stabilize rigid formations of autonomous agents in the past years, surprising yet intriguing undesirable collective motions have been reported recently when inconsistent…
This paper presents a novel control design for vehicular formations, which is an alternative to the conventional second-order consensus protocol. The design is motivated by the closed-loop system, which we construct as first-order systems…
In this paper, we propose a novel approach to the problem of augmenting distance-based formation controllers with a secondary constraint for the purpose of preventing 3D formation ambiguities. Specifically, we introduce three controlled…
This paper introduces a decentralized estimator-based safety-critical controller designed for formation control of non-holonomic mobile robots operating in communication-constrained environments. The proposed framework integrates a robust…
We study the formation control problem for a group of mobile agents in a plane, in which each agent is modeled as a kinematic point and can only use the local measurements in its local frame. The agents are required to maintain a geometric…
This paper deals with the leader-follower attitude synchronization problem for a group of heterogeneous rigid body systems on $SO(3)$ under an undirected, connected, and acyclic graph communication topology. The proposed distributed control…
This paper examines stability properties of distance-based formation control when the underlying topology consists of a rigid graph and a flex node addition. It is shown that the desired equilibrium set is locally asymptotically stable but…
Most rigid formation controllers reported in the literature aim to only stabilize a rigid formation shape, while the formation orientation is not controlled. This paper studies the problem of controlling rigid formations with prescribed…
Control Co-Design (CCD) considers the coupled effects of both the plant and control parameters to optimize a system's closed-loop transient performance during the design stage. This paper presents a new method for CCD with guarantees on…
This paper establishes a unified element-based framework for formation control by introducing the concept of the deformation gradient from continuum mechanics. Unlike traditional methods that rely on geometric constraints defined on graph…
In this paper, we develop a hybrid distance-angle rigidity theory that involves heterogeneous distances (or unsigned angles) and signed constraints for a framework in the 2-D and 3-D space. The new rigidity theory determines a (locally)…
This paper studies decentralized formation control of multiple vehicles when each vehicle can only measure the local bearings of their neighbors by using bearing-only sensors. Since the inter-vehicle distance cannot be measured, the target…
This letter presents two bearing-constrained formation tracking control protocols for multiple nonholonomic agents based respectively on the bearing vectors and displacements between the agents. The desired formation pattern of the system…
In this paper, we present a learning-based tracking controller based on Gaussian processes (GP) for collision avoidance of multi-agent systems where the agents evolve in the special Euclidean group in the space SE(3). In particular, we use…
A technique that allows a Formation-Enforcing Control (FEC) derived from graph rigidity theory to interface with a realistic relative localization system onboard lightweight Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is proposed in this paper. The…
Recently it has been reported that biased range-measurements among neighboring agents in the gradient distance-based formation control can lead to predictable collective motion. In this paper we take advantage of this effect and by…
We introduce a distributed control architecture for a class of heterogeneous, nonlinear dynamical agents moving in the "string" formation, while guaranteeing trajectory tracking, collision avoidance and the preservation of the formation's…
For most existing prescribed performance formation control methods, performance requirements are not directly imposed on the relative states between agents but on the consensus error, which lacks a clear physical interpretation of their…