Taming mismatches in inter-agent distances for the formation-motion control of second-order agents
This work addresses formation control challenges for multi-agent systems, offering a solution to improve accuracy and motion control, but it is incremental as it builds on prior first-order agent research.
The paper tackles the problem of distance mismatches in rigid formation control for second-order agents, showing that these mismatches cause distorted shapes and steady-state motion, and demonstrates that combining control laws with distributed estimators can eliminate these issues while enabling controlled translational and rotational motion.
This paper presents the analysis on the influence of distance mismatches on the standard gradient-based rigid formation control for second-order agents. It is shown that, similar to the first-order case as recently discussed in the literature, these mismatches introduce two undesired group behaviors: a distorted final shape and a steady-state motion of the group formation. We show that such undesired behaviors can be eliminated by combining the standard formation control law with distributed estimators. Finally, we show how the mismatches can be effectively employed as design parameters in order to control a combined translational and rotational motion of the formation.