Soumic Sarkar

Soumic Sarkar, Indra Narayan Kar

Two different aspects of formation control of multiple agents subjected to linear transformation have been addressed in this paper. We consider a set of complex single integrator systems so that the dimension of the system reduces to half as opposed to the vector representation in Cartesian coordinate system. We first design a stable formation controller in an attempt to solve the formation control turned to stabilization problem and then find a collision avoidance controller in the transformed domain, respectively. Different linear transformations are used to facilitate the formation control task in a different way. For example Jacobi transformation is used to separate the shape control and trajectory control. The inverse of the transformation must have nonzero eigenvalues with both positive and negative real parts which may lead the system to instability. If the inverse of the transformation appears in closed loop then a diagonal stabilizing matrix is required to reassign the eigenvalues of the inverse of transformation in the right half of complex plane. The algorithm to find such stabilizing matrix is provided. We then define a matrix of potential in the actual domain which is the stepping stone to find a matrix of potential in the transformed domain. Thus collision avoidance controller can be designed directly in the transformed domain. The mathematical proof is given that both the actual and transformed system behaves identically. Simulation results are provided to support our claim.

Soumic Sarkar, Indra Narayan Kar

Different geometric patterns and shapes are generated using groups of agents, and this needs formation control. In this paper, Centroid Based Transformation (CBT), has been applied to decompose the combined dynamics of nonholonomic Wheeled Mobile Robots (WMRs) into three subsystems: intra and inter group shape dynamics, and the dynamics of the centroid. The intra group shape dynamics can further be partitioned into the shape dynamics of each group, giving the notion of multiple group. Thus separate controllers have been designed for each subsystem. The gains of the controllers are such chosen that the overall system becomes singularly perturbed system, and different subsystems converge to their desired values at different times. Then multi-time scale convergence analysis has been carried out in this paper. Negative gradient of a potential based function has been added to the controller to ensure collision avoidance among the robots. Simulation results have been provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Soumic Sarkar, Indra Narayan Kar

Formation control of multiple groups of agents finds application in large area navigation by generating different geometric patterns and shapes, and also in carrying large objects. In this paper, Centroid Based Transformation (CBT) \cite{c39}, has been applied to decompose the combined dynamics of wheeled mobile robots (WMRs) into three subsystems: intra and inter group shape dynamics, and the dynamics of the centroid. Separate controllers have been designed for each subsystem. The gains of the controllers are such chosen that the overall system becomes singularly perturbed system. Then sliding mode controllers are designed on the singularly perturbed system to drive the subsystems on sliding surfaces in finite time. Negative gradient of a potential based function has been added to the sliding surface to ensure collision avoidance among the robots in finite time. The efficacy of the proposed controller is established through simulation results.