Distributed control of triangular formations with angle-only constraints

This paper considers the coupled, bearing-only formation control of three mobile agents moving in the plane. Each agent has only local inter-agent bearing knowledge and is required to maintain a specified angular separation relative to both neighbor agents. Assuming that the desired angular separation of each agent relative to the group is feasible, a triangle is generated. The control law is distributed and accordingly each agent can determine their own control law using only the locally measured bearings. A convergence result is established in this paper which guarantees global asymptotic convergence of the formation to the desired formation shape. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.