Formation path following control of unicycle-type mobile robots

This paper presents a control strategy for the coordination of multiple mobile robots. A combination of the virtual structure and path following approaches is used to derive the formation architecture. A formation controller is proposed for the kinematic model of two-degree-of-freedom unicycle-type mobile robots. The approach is then extended to consider the formation controller by taking into account the physical dimensions and dynamics of the robots. The controller is designed in such a way that the path derivative is left as a free input to synchronize the robot's motion. Simulation results with three robots are included to show the performance of our control system. Finally, the theoretical results are experimentally validated on a multi-robot platform. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.