Motion Camouflage for Point-Mass Robots Using a Lyapunov-based Control Scheme

This article presents a new solution to the motion camouflage problem for point-mass robots using a Lyapunov-based control scheme. We consider a workspace with one shadower and one shadowee. We design our control inputs for shadower and the shadowee such that at each moment the shadower must follow the camouflage constraint line (the line that joins the instantaneous position of the shadowee with a fixed focal point). This strategy allows the shadower to appear stationary to the shadowee and will help the shadower to effectively catch the shadowee without spending much of its energy. The convergence of the two robots to a neighborhood of a pre-defined target is guaranteed by the Lyapunov's direct method. Computer simulations validate the control inputs and the effectiveness of Lyapunov-based control scheme.