Formation-containment control of multi-robot systems under a stochastic sampling mechanism

This paper studies the problem of formation-containment for multi-robot systems with stochastic sampling. First, a stochastic sampling control protocol is proposed, in which information exchanging among robots only occurred at the sampling time and two different sampling periods randomly switch. Thus, both energy and controller updating frequencies can be reduced. Also, the protocol can be applied to the situation where the sampling period varies stochastically. Second, sufficient conditions guaranteeing mean square formation-containment are derived. Under stochastic sampling mechanism, the leaders reach a geometric formation shape and the followers are in the geometric formation shape formed by the leaders. Finally, an example is shown to demonstrate the results.