This research addresses the problem of formation control of nonholonomic unicycle mobile robots. To solve the problem, we propose two distributed formation control algorithms supported by the virtual structure approach. Because the control of individual robots in the formation is based on local interactions between neighboring robots, there is no need for a global communication network. Moreover, we use a cascaded approach to decompose the problem of stabilizing the origin of the error dynamics. Thus, despite the nonlinearities of nonholonomic robots’ kinematics, the formation control algorithms proposed in this paper are linear. We prove exponential convergence of error variables to the origin and illustrate the behavior of a group of robots under the formation control algorithm in simulations and an experimental study.

Associated paper: Anna Sadowska and Henri Huijberts, "Virtual Structure Approach to Formation Control of Nonholonomic Unicycle Robots", submitted to IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology