Collective control of multiple unicycle agents with non-identical constant speeds: Tracking control and performance limitation

This paper discusses collective control of multiple unicycle-type vehicles with nonholonomic constraints and non-identical constant speeds, with focus on the design of a tracking controller for a desired target´s position and velocity. The tracking control task is divided into several sub-tasks. The group centroid is controlled to track a desired reference velocity, while the reference velocity is constructed with information from the target´s position and velocity so that the group centroid can successfully track both the position and velocity of a target vehicle. In order to keep all the agents close to the centroid within a reasonable spacing, an additive spacing controller is devised. We also discuss in detail the performance limitation and trade-offs of the tracking control due to the constraint of non-identical and constant speeds in such a heterogeneous agent group.