Distance-based formation maneuvering of non-holonomic wheeled mobile robot multi-agent system

In this paper, finite-time distance-based formation maneuvering control of a nonholonomic wheeled mobile robot multi-agent system in a leader-follower configuration is considered. The desired formation graph is assumed to be minimally and infinitesimally rigid, and only a subset of agents has access to the relative position and velocity of the leader. A distributed velocity estimator is employed by each agent to estimate the leader's velocity and therefore the swarm velocity in finite-time. A finite-time formation maneuvering algorithm is presented and it is proved that drives the agents to the desired formation and tracks the leader's velocity in finite-time. Moreover, it is demonstrated that both the velocity estimator and the controller can be implemented in the agents' local coordinate frames. Simulations are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms.