Formation Control of Multi-agent Systems via Distributed Pattern Decision

Abstract

This paper deals with a formation control problem of networked multi-agent systems via distributed pattern decision. We assume that several formation patterns are given without a leader which decides what formation pattern the group of agents should form. Each agent has to individually decide a possible formation pattern by watching the configuration of his neighborhood. Our control objective is to achieve one of the given formation patterns as a result of the distributed pattern decisions. We propose a new objective function consisting of formation errors on the cliques of networks, and design a formation controller based on the gradient flow of this clique-based objective function. The effectiveness of the proposed method is illustrated by simulations.