Cross-Product Steering for Distributed Velocity Alignment in Multi-Agent Systems

We study the problem of distributed velocity alignment among a group of nonholonomic agents in 2 and 3 dimensions. Inspired by social aggregation phenomena such as flocking and schooling in birds and fish, we develop vision based control laws for velocity alignment and motion coordination. The proposed control laws are distributed, in the sense that only information from neighboring agents are included. Furthermore, the control laws are coordinate-free and do not rely on measurement or communication of heading information among neighbors, but instead requires measurements of bearing, optical flow and timeto-collision, all of which can be measured using vision.