A virtual structure approach to formation control of unicycle mobile robots using mutual coupling

Abstract

In this article, the formation control problem for unicycle mobile robots is studied. A distributed virtual structure control strategy with mutual coupling between the robots is proposed. The rationale behind the introduction of the coupling terms is the fact that these introduce additional robustness of the formation with respect to perturbations as compared to typical leader–follower approaches. The applicability of the proposed approach is shown in simulations and experiments with a group of wirelessly controlled mobile robots.