Extension of leader-follower behaviours for wheeled mobile robots in multirobot coordination

Abstract

This paper presents the extension of leader-follower behaviours, for the case of a combined set of kinematic models of omnidirectional and differential-drive wheeled mobile robots. The control strategies are based on the decentralized measurements of distance and heading angles. Combining the kinematic models, the control strategies produce the standard and new mechanical behaviours related to rigid body or n-trailer approaches. The analysis is given in pairs of robots and extended to the case of multiple robots with a directed tree-shaped communication topology. Combining these behaviours, it is possible to make platoons of robots, as obtained from cluster space or virtual structure approaches, but now defined by local measurements and communication of robots. Numerical simulations and real-time experiments show the performance of the approach and the possibilities to be applied in multirobot tasks.