Bearing-Based Formation Maneuver Control of Leader-Follower Multi-Agent Systems

In this letter, we study the bearing-based formation maneuver control problem of the leader-follower multi-agent system. The objectives are achieving the rotation, translation, and scaling maneuvers with a transformable formation shape. Unlike existing works where the target formation is defined by displacements, distances, or constant bearings, we propose a novel target formation with time-varying bearings. The feasibility and uniqueness of the target formation are analyzed by extending the properties of bearing rigidity to time-varying cases. Compared to the existing methods where the positions and velocities of all the agents are required, an estimation-based control method is proposed to achieve the target formation using relative bearings and only the leaders’ positions and velocities. Both the estimation error and tracking error converge to zero under the extended properties of bearing rigidity and cascade system theories. A sufficient condition for collision avoidance among the agents is also proposed. A numerical example illustrates the effectiveness of the proposed method.