Formation control of nonholonomic vehicles under time delayed communications

Abstract

This document considers the formation control problem for a group of nonholonomic mobile robots under time delayed communications. The agents are assumed to be working under a directed and fixed communication topology. A recently developed formation control technique, based on a consensus protocol for linear systems is revisited. The stability analysis of this control technique, in the domain of the time delays, is performed using the Cluster Treatment of Characteristic Roots paradigm under the Spectral Delay Space approach. This analysis leads to an exact declaration of the stability boundaries in the domain of the delays. This linear control law is adapted to the nonlinear dynamics of the nonholonomic carts by means of feedback linearization. Simulation results show the applicability of this method to the class of agents considered here.