Maintaining complex formations and avoiding obstacles for multi-agents

Abstract

This paper researches some problems in complex formation for multi-agents, in which two matrices are proposed to record the formation. The pattern matrix is used to describe the pattern of the formation; meanwhile, the location matrix is used to record the location of each agent. Thus, all desired positions of each agent will be obtained by geometrical relationship on the basis of two matrices above. In addition a self-adaptation flocking algorithm is proposed to control all agents to form a desired formation and avoid obstacles. The main idea is as follows: agents will form a desired formation through the method of formation control when far away from obstacles; otherwise, agents will freely fly to pass through the area of obstacles. In the simulation, three scenarios are designed to verify the effectiveness of our method. The results show that our method also can be applied in three dimensions. All agents will form a stable formation and keep the same velocity at last.