Distributed formation control for a leader-follower structure on directed graphs with a model unknown leader

To deal with leader-follower formation of multi-agent systems with a leader whose dynamics are unknown, a consensus based method is presented to achieve formation keeping for a directed graph. We divide the followers into two parts according to path distance. For the followers connected to the leader, a state-feedback regulation is applied. Then the directed graph is reconstructed and a consensus based method is designed. The controller is implemented in a fully distributed form because each follower only uses the relative and local information. Finally, numerical simulations applying this method to time-varying formation and trajectory tracking are performed. The results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.