Cascaded formation control using angle and distance between agents with orientation control (Part 1)

In this paper and its companion paper, a stable leader-following formation control for multi-agent systems with obstacle collision avoidance with orientation control is considered. We propose a cascaded distributed control law that uses information about the angle and distance between agents to achieve a cycle-free persistent formation. First, we provide a control scheme with collision avoidance for groups of agents with a single integrator model. We show the asymptotic stability of the formation under a gradient control law. Second, the proposed control law includes a distance-angle-based controller for shape stabilization and displacement-based formation control of certain leader agents to control the direction of the whole formation. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the proposed approach.