Combined controller architecture for leader-follower robot formation control

Formation control is an important field in multi-robot coordinated control. Solution of formation navigation in structured static environment is presented in this paper. It is assumed that high level planner is available, which generates collision free trajectory for leader robot. Leader robot is forced to track generated trajectory, while followers' trajectories are generated based on the trajectory realized by the real leader. Real environments contain large number of obstacles, which can be arbitrarily positioned. Hence, formation switching becomes necessary in cases when followers can collide with obstacles. In order to ensure trajectory tracking, as well as object avoidance, control structure with several conventional and fuzzy controllers of different roles (trajectory tracking, obstacle avoiding, vehicle avoiding and combined controller) has been adopted. Kinematic model of differentially driven two-wheeled mobile robot is assumed. Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed approach.