Distributed Containment Control for Multiple Autonomous Vehicles With Double-Integrator Dynamics: Algorithms and Experiments

TLDR

The study investigates distributed containment control for double‑integrator dynamics with both stationary and dynamic leaders. The authors aim to design distributed containment control algorithms that achieve asymptotic or finite‑time containment for stationary leaders and for dynamic leaders with identical or non‑identical velocities, under various network topologies. They propose algorithms for fixed and switching directed networks, as well as for undirected follower communication, and derive conditions on network topology and control gains to guarantee containment. The results show asymptotic containment is achievable in any dimension with a fixed topology, only in one dimension with a switching topology, and simulations and experiments on a multi‑robot platform confirm the theory.

Abstract

This brief studies distributed containment control for double-integrator dynamics in the presence of both stationary and dynamic leaders. In the case of stationary leaders, we propose a distributed containment control algorithm and study conditions on the network topology and the control gains to guarantee asymptotic containment control in any dimensional space. In the case of dynamic leaders, we study two cases: leaders with an identical velocity and leaders with nonidentical velocities. For the first case, we propose two distributed containment control algorithms to solve, respectively, asymptotic containment control under a switching directed network topology and finite-time containment control under a fixed directed network topology. In particular, asymptotic containment control can be achieved for any dimensional space if the network topology is fixed and for only the 1-D space if the network topology is switching. For the second case, we propose a distributed containment control algorithm under a fixed network topology where the communication patterns among the followers are undirected and derive conditions on the network topology and the control gains to guarantee asymptotic containment control for any dimensional space. Both simulation results and experimental results on a multi-robot platform are provided to validate some theoretical results.