Decentralized cooperative control for multivehicle formation without velocity measurement

This paper addresses formation control problems using nonlinear cooperative control theory. In particular, incorporating with the inherent passivity of the tracking error dynamics associated with a general vehicle model, the decentralized formation control algorithms are developed for both leaderless and leader-follower formation scenarios. The proposed control algorithm can ensure the desired formation behavior with an intermittently available, time-varying, and uniformly sequentially complete topology. Furthermore, to facilitate the practical implementation, an auxiliary filter is introduced to develop a control input eliminating the velocity measurement, and accounting for the actuator saturation as well. The simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.