Stabilization of Collective Motion in a Uniform and Constant Flow Field
Derek A. Paley · AIAA Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference and Exhibit · 2008
Decentralized, cooperative control algorithms enable autonomous sensing platforms to conduct synoptic, adaptive surveys of dynamic spatiotemporal processes. Often these sensing platforms are advected by strong and variable flow fields—i.e., winds in the atmosphere and currents in the ocean. Existing cooperative control algorithms are based on simple models of vehicle motion that do not consider an external flow field. In this paper, we introduce a planar motion model that explicitly incorporates a flow field and, for uniform and constant flows, we provide decentralized control algorithms that stabilize basic motion primitives in the model. The motion primitives include synchronized motion, in which all of the vehicles move in the same direction with arbitrary separation; balanced motion, in which the centroid of vehicle positions is fixed; and circular motion, in with all of the particles travel around a circle with a fixed center. By introducing a virtual particle that serves as reference, we derive a circular-motion algorithm that stabilizes motion around a prescribed center point.