Formation State Estimation and Control

Multi-robot formation feasibility, formation control and formation state estimation have been subject of research at the ISLab since 200.

Formation Feasibility

We developed a systematic framework for studying formation motion feasibility of multiagent systems. Algebraic conditions that guarantee formation feasibility (i.e., that the specified geometric constraints can be staisfied) given the individual robot kinematics were determined. Our framework also enables us to obtain lower dimensional control systems describing the group kinematics while maintaining all formation constraints. Formfeasib.jpg Formation feasibility given the robot kinematics and geometric constraints among the robots was studied in a journal paper, resulting from Paulo Tabuada's PhD thesis, finished in 2002. Novel low-communication, decentralized full-state formation estimation methods were developed and tested in a realistic multi-satellite simulator, under the ESA project FEMDS, and one PhD thesis awaiting defence.