A nonlinear formation control of wheeled mobile robots with virtual structure approach

In this paper, we address the formation control problem of a group of wheeled mobile robots with a virtual robot. Firstly, the desired position of each robot is calculated from the virtual structure, which is determined by the virtual robot and the desired formation shape. Then, with applying a virtual orientation control input, a nonlinear control algorithm is designed via backstepping technique. After that a mathematical stability analysis is given with adopting the cascaded system theorem. The strict stability analysis shows that the formation tracking errors are globally uniformly asymptotically convergent to zero. Finally, simulation examples verify the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy.