3D Formation Control of Multiple Cooperating Autonomous Agents via Leader-Follower Strategy

The work done in this paper provides solutions to the collision avoidance of multiple point-mass robots in the presence of multiple spherical and cylindrical obstacles in three-dimensional space. A set of autonomous controllers is derived using the architecture of the Lyapunov-based Control Scheme (LbCS) to achieve this task. We implement the leader-follower strategy via the split-rejoin method here, where we choose a leader and the rest of the flock or agents behave with respect to the leader to achieve its predetermined task. In addition, in the presence of fixed obstacles, the whole formation will split to avoid obstacles present in its path using the Minimum Distance Technique and rejoin at a safer place, regaining its pre-defined formation with respect to the leader. The Minimum Distance Technique allows a point-mass agent to avoid the walls of obstacles by approaching them from the closest possible distance in each unit of time. The formation will also avoid inter-collision, which is defined as moving obstacles in this case. Using the Lyapunov-based control scheme, a set of non-linear acceleration-based controllers will be derived such that the desired task is easily completed. The controllers will ensure that the formation travels in a well-planned manner and successfully converges on its targets while avoiding obstacles. To prove the efficiency and simplicity of the nonlinear acceleration-based controllers derived, computer simulations of virtual scenarios have been performed and given in the simulation results and discussion section. The paper concludes with a conclusion and recommendations for future work in this field.