A strategy for target capturing with collision avoidance for non-holonomic robots with sector vision and range-only measurements

We consider the problem of capturing a target by a team of kinematically controlled non-holonomic Dubins-like vehicles based on range-only measurements. Every vehicle has access to the distance to the target and the distances to the companions from the given disc sector centered at this vehicle. The objective is to drive all vehicles to the circle of the prescribed radius centered at the target, to uniformly distribute them along this circle, and to ensure the pre-specified speed and direction of their motion along the circle. A decentralized control law is proposed and investigated. Mathematically rigorous proofs of its convergence and stability, as well as collision avoidance property are presented; the performance of the control law is illustrated by computer simulations.