Formation stabilization of nonholonomic multi-robot systems using relative distance measurements

This paper addresses the decentralized formation stabilization issues using relative distance measurements for a class of nonholonomic multi-robot formation systems (NMRFS) under the assumption of each robot having its own stable trajectory tracking controller. This class of NMRFS, composed by n nonholonomic wheeled mobile robots (WMRs), is regarded as an abstracted system which mathematically describes the interconnect topology among the robots. Based on some critical stability results, the stabilization of the nonholonomic NMRFS are theoretically derived using differential geometry and its asymptotical formation stability is achieved. In addition, the design issue in the NMRFS with respect to the interconnection and formation stability is distinctly defined so that the changing formation parameters or interconnected structures on-line become practicable in the NMRFS. The effectiveness of the proposed methods is exemplified by conducting one simulation.