String Formation and Obstacle Avoidance for Multiple Autonomous Agents

A novel pursuit-based approach is presented to investigate string formation and obstacle avoidance for multiple autonomous agents. The control objective for these agents is to reach a final desired position along a collision-free trajectory. First, a line formation is achieved by using a leader-follower strategy, in which one agent is regarded as the leader and the others are followers. By using the receding horizon control, the leader agent can reach the destination while effectively avoiding collision with obstacles evolving in environment. The information on obstacles is incorporated online as they are detected by sensors with a limited detecting range. Moreover, each follower agent should only pursue its front agent. It turns out that the follower agents can keep a string formation with the leader agent wherein the string formation is useful for a fleet of agents driving in a platoon sequence on a road. The system stability can be guaranteed with a terminal-state penalty in the cost function and a terminal-state region in the optimal control problem. Finally, simulation studies are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.