Decentralized control strategies for connectivity guaranteed tracking of multi-agent systems

In this paper, we study the control strategy for connectivity guaranteed trajectory tracking for multi-agent systems using artificial potential based approach. Some agents, called active agents (AAs), which are attracted by the reference point (modeled as the virtual leader), lead the rest of the group to perform the task. Special features of our approach are that the group is not required to be initially connected and the AAs are not fixed as the system evolves. Two control strategies, each of which consists of an AA switching rule and the coupled flocking controller, are proposed to realize different kinds of connectivity as well as other well-known flocking specifications for the multi-agent group.