Bearing-Based Formation Control with Second-Order Agent Dynamics

Abstract

In this paper, we consider the distributed formation control problem for a network of agents using visual measurements. We consider solutions that are bearing based, and agents with double integrator dynamics. We assume that a subset of the agents can track, in addition to their neighbors, a set of static features in the environment. These features are not be considered to be part of the formation to control, but they are used to better control the dynamics of the agents as a whole. In particular, the static features will not provide any constraint on the position of the agents, since they location is, in general, unknown and the formation alone does not specify a relation with them. However, the simple fact that they are static provides enough information to asymptotically control the velocity of the agents.