Position and orientation based formation control of multiple rigid bodies with collision avoidance and connectivity maintenance
Christos K. Verginis, Alexandros Nikou, Dimos V. Dimarogonas · 2017
This paper addresses the problem of position- and orientation-based formation control of a class of second-order nonlinear multi-agent systems in a 3D workspace with obstacles. More specifically, we design a decentralized control protocol such that each agent achieves a predefined geometric formation with its initial neighbors, while using local information based on a limited sensing radius. The latter implies that the proposed scheme guarantees that the initially connected agents remain always connected. In addition, by introducing certain distance constraints, we guarantee inter-agent collision avoidance as well as collision avoidance with the obstacles and the boundary of the workspace. Finally, simulation results verify the validity of the proposed framework.