A supervisory control strategy for visibility maintenance inthe leader-follower formation

Abstract

This paper deals with the leader-follower formation control problem while measurement constraints are considered for the follower onboard sensor. From a practical point of view, the case when unmanned vehicles are subject to limited sensing and communication is of particular interest. In this work based on the state-space representation of the leader-follower relative kinematics, the formation is realized by employing a state feedback. Then, by considering the limited field of view in the measurement sensor, a soft-switching supervisory control strategy is proposed. This paper is distinct with respect to the existing studies in the sensor measurements specifications, the leader-follower system formulation and proposed control strategy for visibility maintenance problem. Simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed control structure.