Flocking motion control of mobile agents based on distance-dependent adjacency matrix

In this study, a novel procedure is presented for control and analysis of multiple autonomous agents with point mass dynamics achieving flocking motion. Two control laws are proposed for a group of autonomous agents to achieve flocking formations related to two different centers (mass center and geometric center) of the flock. The first one is designed for flocking motion based on mass center and the second for geometric center. Distance-dependent adjacency matrix is used to quantify the way agents influence each other. Theoretical analysis is established to indicate the stability (cohesiveness, collision avoidance and velocity matching) of the control systems using classical Lyapunov theory. Finally, a simulation example is demonstrated to validate the theoretical results.