Formation tracking of multi-robot systems with switching directed topologies based on Udwadia-Kalaba approach

In this paper, a distributed formation tracking protocol is proposed for multi-robot systems with switching directed topologies based on the Udwadia-Kalaba approach. The basic idea is to use the consensus-based scheme to reconstruct formation tracking control requirement into a second order constraint first, and then apply the Udwadia-Kalaba approach to obtain the constraint force required to achieve the formation tracking, and afterward derive the explicit equations of motion for the constrained multi-robot systems for the control algorithm design. The convergence analysis of the tracking error system is conducted to affirm that the proposed control algorithm can achieve the formation tracking when the switching directed topologies have a directed spanning tree across each switching time interval. Numerical simulations are performed to validate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Automated summary

This paper proposes a distributed formation tracking protocol for multi-robot systems with switching directed topologies based on the Udwadia-Kalaba approach. By converting formation tracking control requirements into a constraint force and applying a specific method for tracking, the effectiveness of the algorithm is validated through numerical simulations.