Top-Down Synthesis of Multi-Agent Formation Control: An Eigenstructure Assignment based Approach
This work addresses the challenge of scalable formation control for multi-agent systems, offering a systematic synthesis method that bridges global design and local implementation.
The paper proposes a top-down eigenstructure assignment approach for formation control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems, enabling scalable formations with local implementation through sparse communication topologies. The method is extended to rigid formation and circular motion, with simulation examples demonstrating its effectiveness.
We propose a top-down approach for formation control of heterogeneous multi-agent systems, based on the method of eigenstructure assignment. Given the problem of achieving scalable formations on the plane, our approach globally computes a state feedback control that assigns desired closed-loop eigenvalues/eigenvectors. We characterize the relation between the eigenvalues/eigenvectors and the resulting inter-agent communication topology, and design special (sparse) topologies such that the synthesized control may be implemented locally by the individual agents. Moreover, we present a hierarchical synthesis procedure that significantly improves computational efficiency. Finally, we extend the proposed approach to achieve rigid formation and circular motion, and illustrate these results by simulation examples.