Leader-Steered Rigid Formation Control With Visibility Maintenance for Multiple Nonholonomic Mobile Robots
提出一种新框架，使受非完整约束的多机器人系统在领航者引导下形成刚性编队，同时通过车载相机维护拓扑连接车辆间的可见性，并利用切换函数平衡编队调整与可见性维护。
This article introduces a novel framework for achieving leader-steered (L-S) rigid formations within a multirobot vehicle system subject to nonholonomic constraints, while considering field-of-view (FOV) constraints. In contrast to the conventional separation-bearing leader-follower model, this framework incorporates a virtual leader model, established through topological and local agent connections. To achieve L-S rigid formations and address FOV constraints, a transformative approach is employed. In addition to forming L-S rigid formations, the framework ensures visibility maintenance between topologically connected vehicles using onboard cameras. This is achieved through the introduction of a continuous and continuously differentiable switching function, crucial in balancing visibility maintenance with formation adjustments, particularly when the global leader traverses trajectory segments with large curvature. To implement the framework, the distributed control protocol and the distributed observer are developed. Numerical simulations and real-world experiments demonstrate the framework's capability to achieve L-S rigid formations while accommodating FOV constraints, showcasing its practical utility and effectiveness in real-world applications.