ECE Departmental Seminar 

General formation control for multi-agent systems with double-integrator dynamics

Prof. Weiguo Xia

Dalian University of Technology

Thursday, 12/13/18, 12:00pm
Light Engineering 250

Abstract: We study the general formation problem for a group of mobile agents in a plane, in which the agents are required to maintain a distribution pattern, as well as to rotate around or remain static relative to a static/moving target. The prescribed distribution pattern is a class of general formations that the distances between neighboring agents or the distances from each agent to the target do not need to be equal. Each agent is modeled as a double integrator and can merely perceive the relative information of the target and its neighbors. In order to solve the general formation problem, a limit-cycle based controller design is delivered. We divide the overall control objective into two sub-objectives, where the first is target circling that each agent keeps its own desired distance to the static/moving target as well as rotating around or remaining static relative to the target as expected, and the second is distribution adjustment that each agent maintains the desired distance from its neighbors. Then we design a controller comprised of two parts, where a limit cycle oscillator named a converging part to deal with the first sub-objective, while a layout part is introduced to address the second sub-objective. Theoretical analysis is provided for all stable equilibria and one of the unstable equilibiria of the N-agent system. Numerical simulations are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller.

Bio: Weiguo Xia is an Associate Professor with the School of Control Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, China. He received the B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Applied Mathematics from Southeast University, Nanjing, China, in 2006 and 2009, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree from the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, ENTEG, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands, in 2013. From 2013 to 2015, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the ACCESS Linnaeus Centre, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. His current research interests include complex networks, social networks, and multiagent systems.