Leader-follower formation control using infrared camera with reflective tag

In this paper, we explain method of formation control for swarm robots in outdoor environments. Adopted is a leader-following approach for the main formation control. Using only camera for the localization of a leader robot is hard to identify precise images because of a severe illumination change between day and night. So we propose to use an infrared camera with reflective tags. Experiments with two mobile robots have been performed in an outdoor environment and the results will be discussed.