ABSTRACT In this paper, a novel observer-based control approach is developed to handle leader-follower formation control of multiple nonholonomic mobile robots. Unlike other available techniques, the proposed formation control strategy can be implemented online without the need to pre-specify the trajectories to be tracked, but only the desired location at the next instant of time. Such an approach permits the system to track formation protocols made of multiple complicated trajectories, and allows the designer to change the trajectories on-line according to the surrounding environment. The estimation part of the proposed approach is conducted using the newly developed smoothed regularised least-squares observer. This observer provides highly accurate predicted state estimates that are essential in generating the desired control strategy. The stability of the proposed observer-based controller is analysed. Simulation results of a formation consisting of a leader and two followers are presented to show the effectiveness and applicability of the developed approach.

中文翻译：

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通过新的基于观察者的控制器控制移动非完整机器人的领导者-跟随者形成

摘要在本文中，开发了一种新的基于观察者的控制方法来处理多个非完整移动机器人的领导者-跟随者形成控制。与其他可用技术不同，所提出的编队控制策略可以在线实施，而无需预先指定要跟踪的轨迹，而只需指定下一时刻所需的位置。这种方法允许系统跟踪由多个复杂轨迹组成的编队协议，并允许设计者根据周围环境在线改变轨迹。所提出方法的估计部分是使用新开发的平滑正则化最小二乘观测器进行的。该观测器提供高度准确的预测状态估计，这对于生成所需的控制策略至关重要。分析了所提出的基于观测器的控制器的稳定性。由一个领导者和两个跟随者组成的编队的仿真结果显示了所开发方法的有效性和适用性。