Brief paper: adaptive formation tracking control of electrically driven multiple mobile robots

An adaptive formation control method is proposed for multiple uncertain non-holonomic mobile robots at the actuator dynamics level. All parameters of the robot kinematics and dynamics, and actuator dynamics are unknown. The virtual structure with path parameters and the dynamic surface design methodology are combined to design a simpler adaptive formation control scheme than the previous backstepping-based control system. Using the Lyapunov stability theorem, the authors present the adaptation laws for tuning all unknown parameters of multiple mobile robots regardless of considering path parameters in the reference trajectories. In addition, it is proved that all signals in the total closed-loop system are semi-globally uniformly bounded and all formation tracking errors and synchronisation errors of the path parameters converge to an adjustable neighbourhood of the origin. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.