Prescribed-time bearing-based time-varying formation control for multi-agent system

In this manuscript, we investigate the problem of prescribed-time bearing-based formation tracking for multi-agent systems. The proposed control law employs a two-stage strategy to achieve formation tracking within a prescribed time. For multi-agent systems with time-varying leader velocities, follower agents estimate the leaders' inputs through a prescribed-time bearing-based observer. The second stage of the control law is a prescribed-time bearing-based formation tracking controller. Relying solely on the measurement and communication of bearing-related information between neighboring agents, the controller drives the followers to achieve the desired bearing-constrained formation in a prescribed time for first-order systems and enables the agents to achieve velocity coordination with the leaders for second-order systems. The prescribed times for the two stages of the control law can be assigned independently by the user, and convergence is proved using Lyapunov analysis. In addition, to demonstrate the effectiveness and practical feasibility of the proposed control law, simulations and a UAV swarm experiment are conducted.