Robust Formation Control for PWM-Controlled Mobile Autonomous Multiagent Systems

This article investigates the robust formation problem of a class of nonholonomic mobile robots that are controlled by pulsewidth-modulation (PWM) signals and subject to switching topologies and measurement disturbances. However, the existing literature does not fully account for the impact of hybrid PWM control inputs and second-order dynamics. As a result, traditional continuous linear control schemes require significant modification before application. To address this problem, a new class of distributed robust PWM controllers is proposed, ensuring that each PWM-controlled agent asymptotically converges to the desired position and velocity. In addition, an invariant set-like method is presented that restricts the states of each subsystem to a chosen closed set by analyzing the dynamic relationship between the interactions, as long as the information exchange topology satisfies a mild restriction. Finally, it is demonstrated that by analyzing the dynamic relationship between the interactions of different agents, the closed-loop system converges in the sense of input-to-state stability (ISS). A numerical example is provided to validate the theoretical results.