Stability analysis of distributed autonomous vehicles

This paper describes how large-scale decentralized control theory may be used to analyze the stability of multiple cooperative robotic vehicles. Models of cooperation are discussed from a decentralized control system point of view. Whereas decentralized control research in the past has concentrated on using decentralized controllers to partition complex physically interconnected systems, this work uses decentralized methods to connect otherwise independent nontouching robotic vehicles so that they behave in a stab le, coordinated fashion. A vector Liapunov method is used to prove stability of two examples: the controlled motion of multiple vehicles along a perimeter and the controlled motion of multiple vehicles in a plane.