Distributed Formation Control for a Group of Multiple Nonholonomic Mobile Robots

This brief is concerned with the distributed cooperative formation control for a group of multi-nonholonomic mobile robots from the view of multi-agent systems. A simple yet general model of multi-nonholonomic mobile robot is first introduced, and a distributed formation controller is then proposed for multi-nonholonomic mobile robots (MNMRs) by systematically integrating a kinematic controller and a torque controller. A distinctive feature of the developed distributed formation strategy is to introduce the network topology characterizing communication interaction among robots, where a few robots of the group are only assumed to receive the information of the desired formation for MNMRs, and so it is particularly suitable to be implemented for a large number of robots in practice. Finally, simulation examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed formation methodology.