Column formation control of multi-robot systems with input constraints

This paper is concerned with the column formation control of multi-robot systems that are subject to input constraints. A new leader-follower setup is proposed, under which the Lyapunov method can provide a simple controller in terms of two feedback parameters. It is shown that using an elliptic approximation to input constraints, the two feedback parameters can be obtained directly with a geometric analysis method. Moreover, a sufficient condition is presented for the leader robot to guarantee that the desired column formation can be achieved, with which a particular controller is designed by selecting two appropriate functions for the feedback parameters. Simulation results are included to verify the effectiveness of the proposed theoretical results.