Motion coordination of planar rigid bodies

Motion coordination of autonomous vehicles has applications from target surveillance to climate monitoring. Previous research has yielded stabilizing control laws for a self-propelled-particle model with first-order rotational dynamics, but this model may not adequately describe the rotational and translational dynamics of vehicles in the atmosphere or ocean. This paper describes the design of algorithms for decentralized control of self-propelled vehicles with second-order rotational and translational dynamics. We utilize a backstepping-based controller to achieve the desired second-order rotational dynamics of each vehicle and feedback linearization to attain the desired (constant) forward speed. We consider parallel and circular formations. These controls extend prior results to a more realistic vehicle model, while maintaining comparable performance.