2016 Volume 29 Issue 8 Pages 382-389
In recent years, cooperative control of multi-agents, especially formation control, has attracted considerable interest among control engineers. As one of the formation control methods, we deal with the leader-following formation navigation (LFFN). The LFFN is defined such that a human operator or an autonomous leader agent forms a queue of agents to guide multiple followers. The followers pass along the leader's trajectory with the same motion as the leader. When the leader passes along a safe route to avoid obstacles, the followers also pass along a similar safe trajectory. However, when using the LFFN, the followers can shape only a single column formation.
In this study, we first extend the above LFFN's usage to parallel single columns using adjoining virtual leaders. Next, we consider virtual leaders adjoining the leader to design virtual trajectories along which virtual leaders passed and virtual leader's velocities on their path. We design the followers' target points which track the virtual leaders path with designed virtual velocity. Using our proposed method, the followers shape a formation which is not a single column but a multiple column type. Finally, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our newly proposed method through simulation and experimentation.
