Experimental verification and algorithm of a multi-robot cooperative control method

In this paper, we consider a multi-robot cooperative control problem via a robust consensus tracking algorithm. The main objective of this paper is to develop and implement a multi-robot formation control testbed and use it to verify the effectiveness of a cooperative control algorithm developed in our recent work. In the robust consensus tracking algorithm, an observer is developed to identify the disturbances and uncertainties in the information dynamics, and a consensus law is developed based on this observer to enable the robots reach a consensus on their understanding of the reference trajectory. A low-level motion controller is then used to control the robots to track their desired trajectories computed from the consensus value. In the experimental development, a group of wheeled mobile robots achieve a global behavior (e.g., track a time-varying desired trajectory) while maintaining a formation. The desired reference trajectory is only provided to a small group of leading robots.