Study On Formation Control Of Autonomous Vehicles

In recent years,the control of multiple autonomous has been gaining increasing popularity.In this paper,based on deeply analysis of native and foreign research results on control problem of formation control,the existing shortages in these results are summarized.And then some problems of the formation control of multiple atuonomous vehicles is explored systematically.The paper is organized as follows:Firstly,through reading a lot of literatures,the development situations and the latest research results of studying on the formation control are summarized;and then the existing problems and limitations in these research results are proposed.Secondly,thinking of the limitations in the existing model,a new leader-follower formation model in new coordinate system is developped,which also considering the constraints for the car-like vehicle.This model can transform the formation control issue into the tracking problem bewteen the follower and the leader.Thirdly,considering the new leader-follower nonlinear kinematic model,the velocity tracing controller of the follower is designed useing Lyapunov method,which can ensure the relative distance and angle reach the predicated value.The simulations by matlab/simulink prove that the proposed controller based on the new model can conquer the limitations of the model available in the aspect of angle control.Fouthly,the controller of follower is extented to N vehicles formation control. Considering two strategies for obstacle avoidance(formation keeping and route changing,formation changing and route keeping),the formation structure is described by graph theory.Then design the control relationship bewteen the vehicles,so we can get the controller of the whole vehicles team.At last simulations by matlab/simulink prove that the control targets are achieved with the proposed controller.Finally,the main conclusions of this paper are summarized,and the work for future research is given.