Experimental study of formation alignment of multiple autonomous air-levitated vehicles with rule-based controls
P. K. C. Wang, J. Yee, Fred Y. Hadaegh, K. Y. Lau · Journal of Robotic Systems · 1998
An experimental study is made on the alignment of three autonomous air-levitated vehicles with air-jet controls to achieve an equilateral-triangle formation. The vehicles are equipped with lasers, optical sensors, radio transceivers, and on-board power sources. The attitude and displacement of each vehicle are controlled by air-jets, simple rule-based controls activated by discrete optical sensors with binary outputs and special geometric configuration for formation alignment. The main objective is to determine the feasibility of using control rules derived by making use of the sensor data only for formation alignment. The sensors consist of discrete, binary optical detectors arranged in a certain geometric pattern. The vehicle design, including estimation of levitation lifetime, sensor design, and vehicle excursion due to an air-jet pulse, are discussed first. Then the control rules are described in detail. The effectiveness of the proposed sensor–control combination in formation alignment is determined both experimentally and via computer simulation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.