Formation Control and Collision Avoidance for Multi-agent Non-holonomic Systems: Theory and Experiments

In this paper we present a theoretical and experimental result on the control of multi-agent non-holonomic systems. We design and implement a novel decentralized control scheme that achieves dynamic formation control and collision avoidance for a group of non-holonomic robots. First, we derive a feedback law using Lyapunov-type analysis that guarantees collision avoidance and tracking of a reference trajectory for a single robot. Then we extend this result to the case of multiple non-holonomic robots, and show how different multi-agent problems, such as formation control and leader–follower control, can be addressed in this framework. Finally, we combine the above results to address the problem of coordinated tracking for a group of agents. We give extensive experimental results that validate the effectiveness of our results in all three cases. KEY WORDS—autonomous agents, wheeled robots, distributed robot systems, control of non-holonomic systems, formation control, collision avoidance