Experimental validation of distributed cooperative control for mobile agents with switching topologies and time-delays

In t his paper, we present practical experimental results to demonstrate a control law for consensus of multiagent systems with switching topologies and time delays. The nonlinear control law utilizes nonlinear cooperative control gains and uses contraction mapping to achieve consensus of multiagent systems. The testing platform we used consists of a number of mobile robots. We present the effectiveness of the control law design by Aria mobile robots with applications in distributed cooperative formation control. Computer simulations and hardware experiments presented include point consensus control and formation control, both with changing topologies and time-delays using directed and undirected communication topologies.