Multirate sampling — Based leader-following formation navigation with relative information

The paper discusses about the leader-following formation navigation (LFFN). In this formation, one leader is controlled by a human operator while multiple followers pass along the leader´s trajectory in the same motion as the leader behind the leader after some interval. We have proposed the LFFN method using relative information from laser range finders (LRFs). However, it is difficult to realize the above situation due to the difference between sampling period in LRF and control period. We overcome this difficulty by using the multirate sampling control theory. Furthermore, we deal with the fusion of collision avoidance and the maintenance of formation-distance (MFD) in the LFFN. We lastly demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method through simulation with three mobile robots.