Virtual Leaders, Artificial Potentials and Coordinated Control of Groups
Naomi Ehrich Leonard and Edward Fiorelli
Proc. of the 40th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control,
Orlando, FL, December 2001, 2968--2973.
We present a framework for coordinated and distributed control of
multiple autonomous vehicles using artificial potentials and
virtual leaders. Artificial potentials define interaction control
forces between neighboring vehicles and are designed to enforce a
desired inter-vehicle spacing. A virtual leader is a moving
reference point that influences vehicles in its neighborhood by
means of additional artificial potentials. Virtual leaders can be
used to manipulate group geometry and direct the motion of the
group. The approach provides a construction for a Lyapunov
function to prove closed-loop stability using the system kinetic energy
and the artificial potential energy. Dissipative
control terms are included to achieve asymptotic stability. The
framework allows for a homogeneous group with no ordering of vehicles;
this adds robustness of the group to a single vehicle failure.