Distributed Fixed-Time Control for Leader-Steered Rigid Shape Formation With Prescribed Performance.

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Control Systems
• Kinematics

Background:

• Coordinated multi-robot systems are crucial for complex tasks.
• Existing consensus-based methods often lack full control over formation geometry.
• Maintaining invariant rigid shapes with leader-consistent motion is challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To propose a novel framework for multi-robot networks to form and maintain invariant rigid geometric shapes.
• To enable both translational and rotational movements of the formation geometry.
• To ensure the entire formation motion is consistent with the leader's motion.

Main Methods:

• Utilized the principle of rigid body kinematics for framework design.
• Developed a distributed control protocol for Euler-Lagrange robotic vehicles with nonholonomic constraints.
• Implemented a prescribed performance control (PPC) algorithm combining nonsingular sliding manifold and adaptive law to address second-order dynamics.

Main Results:

• The proposed framework successfully forms and maintains invariant rigid geometric shapes.
• The control protocol ensures leader-consistent translational and rotational formation movements.
• Numerical simulations and practical experiments validated the framework's effectiveness with four robotic vehicles.

Conclusions:

• The novel framework enables robust and coordinated motion for multi-robot systems.
• The developed distributed control protocol with PPC effectively manages complex robotic dynamics.
• This approach offers enhanced control over formation geometry and motion consistency.