Formation Control and Obstacle Avoidance for Multi-Agent Systems Based on Virtual Leader-Follower Strategy

Abstract

This paper investigates the formation control and obstacle avoidance problem for multi-agent systems (MASs), which aims to coordinate the pursuer agents to capture a mobile target. The target appears at a location randomly and its movement obeys Reactive Rabbit Model. The pursuers and the mobile target can be modeled as a Pursuit-Evasion Game (PEG). During the movement, not all of the pursuer agents can obtain the real-time information of the target. Moreover, the obstacle avoidance makes the formation of pursuer agents a big challenge to encircle the mobile target. In order to tackle these two problems, the formation control and obstacle avoidance algorithm is presented in this paper based on a novel virtual leader-follower strategy and potential functions. The obstacle avoidance problem can then be solved by constructing a velocity potential. The numerical analysis and simulation demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.