Fault-Tolerant Formation Tracking Control for Multi-Agent Systems with Bearing-Only Measurement

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Control Systems Engineering
• Distributed Systems

Background:

• Multi-agent systems require coordinated control for formation tasks.
• Actuator faults and uncertainties pose significant challenges to formation stability.
• Relying solely on bearing measurements simplifies system requirements.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a fault-tolerant formation control strategy for multi-agent systems using only bearing measurements.
• To address actuator faults and unknown uncertainties in leader-follower configurations.
• To achieve asymptotic convergence to a desired geometric formation.

Main Methods:

• A prescribed-time uncertainty observer estimates faults and uncertainties.
• A bearing-only fault-tolerant control scheme utilizes observer estimates and leader acceleration limits.
• The control strategy does not require real-time dynamic information exchange between agents.

Main Results:

• Followers can estimate uncertainties within a prescribed time.
• All agents asymptotically converge to the target formation despite faults.
• Rigorous stability analysis of the closed-loop system is provided.

Conclusions:

• The proposed bearing-only formation control is effective and robust to actuator faults.
• The method eliminates the need for inter-agent communication of dynamic states.
• Simulation results validate the theoretical framework and control scheme effectiveness.