Fixed-Time Formation Control for Wheeled Mobile Robots With Prescribed Performance

A fixed-time control approach is investigated for the leader–follower formation tracking issue of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) with prescribed performance in this brief. The nonlinear and underactuated model of the WMR is first transformed into a linear one with uncertainties and external disturbances. Then, a time-varying fixed-time extended state observer is developed to observe the total disturbance. Furthermore, a time-varying fixed-time distributed observer is constructed to estimate the state of the leader. Finally, a novel fixed-time prescribed performance strategy is presented to achieve the formation tracking. Experimental results demonstrate the validation of the proposed method.