Adaptive leader-follower formation control of non-holonomic mobile robots using active vision

This study is concerned with the leader-follower formation control of non-holonomic mobile robots without communication. A pan-controlled camera is the sole sensor used by the follower to observe the leader. A new vision-based formation system without range states is proposed, which eliminates the need of inter-robot range estimation. An adaptive formation controller and an adaptive camera controller are designed in the presence of unknown leader´s velocities and vision-related parameters. A parameter projection algorithm is integrated into the controllers to bound the control inputs. The camera controller ensures the stable observation of the leader´s features. Thus the camera constantly provides visual measurements for the formation controller which guarantees the formation maintenance. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed active vision-based formation control approach.