Graph based distributed control of non-holonomic vehicles endowed with local positioning information engaged in escorting missions

Using graph theory, this paper investigates how a group of robots, endowed with local positioning (range and bearing from other robots), can be engaged in a leader-following mission whilst keeping a predefined configuration. The possibility to locally change the behaviors of the follower team to accomodate both tasks is explored. In particular, a methodology to automatically adjust the parameters of the inter-robot interactions and a nonlinear PI controller are explained and implemented. Our approach is supported by a mathematical analysis as well as real robot experiments.