Collision-free formation trajectory tracking control for second-order multi-agent systems by PPC method

Abstract

This paper focuses on addressing the problem of realizing formation trajectory tracking and communication maintenance for multi-agent systems. To ensure comprehensive safety, potential collisions among individual agents and between agents and obstacles are considered here. First, to attain the objectives of accurately tracking a formation trajectory while preventing collisions and maintaining communications among the initially connected agents, an expected velocity is designed for each agent by adopting the prescribed performance control (PPC) method. Second, for the purpose of avoiding the collisions between agents and obstacles, a continuous potential function is introduced to generate an obstacle avoidance term in the expected velocity. Further, a control algorithm is devised for each agent to enable it to adjust its velocity to align with the expected velocity. Finally, the simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of this method.