Formation Control with Virtual Leaders and Reduced Communications

A feedback control law is given that can achieve a pre-specified formation for a group of mobile autonomous agents in an obstacle-free environment. This formation design uses virtual leaders and attractive forces to direct the group to track a desired path and achieve a desired formation, and uses repulsive forces to avoid agent collisions. The feedback control law can lead to reduced communication requirements by allowing an agent, under certain conditions, to cease communication with its neighbors. It is shown that by applying the pre-specified formation design with the feedback control law, the agent group can not only achieve and maintain a desired formation while tracking a desired path, but also avoid agent collisions with reduced inter-agent communications and reduced actuation of the individual agents.