Leader-follower and cascade system based formation control of nonholonomic intelligent vehicles

This paper presents a new framework for the formation control of nonholonomic intelligent vehicles combining the leader-follower and cascade system together. The formation model is obtained based on the leader-follower approach. The controllers are designed by using global fast terminal sliding mode control technique for the leader who tracks the reference trajectory and back-stepping method for the follower to keep the predetermined formation movement. Furthermore, the leader and follower of intelligent vehicles can be treated as every part of the cascade system, which relies on a kind of multi-platform information fusion technology to realize communication among vehicles. Simulation results show the correctness and effectiveness of the algorithm.