Adaptive motion coordination: Using relative velocity feedback to track a reference velocity

We study a coordination problem where the objective is to steer a group of agents to a formation that translates with a prescribed reference velocity. In Bai et al. [Bai, H., Arcak, M., & Wen, J. (2008). Adaptive design for reference velocity recovery in motion coordination. Systems and Control Letters, 57(8), 602–610.] we considered the situation where the reference velocity information is available only to a leader, and developed a decentralized adaptive design that uses relative position feedback. Although Bai et al. (please see above reference) guaranteed the desired formation, it did not ensure tracking of the reference velocity with the exception of special cases. We now propose a new adaptive redesign that guarantees tracking of the reference velocity by incorporating relative velocity feedback in addition to relative position feedback.