Multi-leader multi-follower coordination with cohesion, dispersion, and containment control via proximity graphs

Research Paper Special Focus on Distributed Cooperative Analysis, Control and Optimization in Networks
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Abstract

This paper studies the problem of multi-leader multi-follower coordination with proximity-based network topologies. The particular interest is to drive all the followers towards the convex hull formed by the moving leaders while producing cohesion behavior and keeping group dispersion. First, in the case of stationary leaders, we design a gradient-based continuous control algorithm. We show that with this continuous algorithm the control objective can be achieved, and the tracking error bound can be controlled by tuning some control parameters. We apply the continuous control algorithm to the moving leaders case and show that the tracking error bound is related to the velocities of the leaders. However, in this case, the algorithm has one restriction that the velocities of the leaders should depend on neighboring followers’ velocities, which might not be desirable in some scenarios. Therefore, we propose a nonsmooth algorithm for moving leaders which works under the mild assumption of boundedness of leaders’ velocities. Finally, we present numerical examples to show the validity of the proposed algorithms.

Keywords

cooperative control multi-agent system containment control cohesion dispersion collision-free movement 
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Notes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 61473240, 61528301), National Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province (Grant No. 2017J01119), 111 Project (Grant No. B17048), and State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Control and Decision of Complex Systems.

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Copyright information

© Science China Press and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany 2017

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of AutomationXiamen UniversityXiamenChina
  2. 2.Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringUniversity of CaliforniaRiversideUSA
  3. 3.Charles L. Brown Department of Electrical and Computer EngineeringUniversity of VirginiaCharlottesvilleUSA

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