Vision-based Formation Control with Control Barrier Function

This study explores a vision-based formation control algorithm for nonholonomic mobile robots operating under visibility constraints without relying on inter-robot communication. The camera used to monitor the leading agent has field of view (FOV) constraints, making it crucial to maintain real-time visibility for effective leading agent tracking. To address these challenges, we designed a barrier function based on the camera’s pixel coordinates and showed that the control barrier function based quadratic programming satisfies both the visibility maintenance and nonholonomic property. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through simulations that demonstrate its ability to maintain visibility and achieve the desired formation.