Distributed Control of Angle-constrained Circular Formations using Bearing-only Measurements

Abstract: This paper studies distributed formation control of multiple agents in the plane using bearing-only measurements. It is assumed that each agent only measures the local bearings of their neighbor agents. The target formation considered in this paper is a circular formation, where each agent has exactly two neighbors. In the target formation, the angle subtended at each agent by their two neighbors is specified. We propose a distributed control law that stabilizes angle-constrained target formations merely using local bearing measurements. The stability of the target formation is analyzed based on Lyapunov approaches. We present a unified proof to show that our control law not only can ensure local exponential stability but also can give local finite-time stability. The exponential or finite-time stability can be easily switched by tuning a parameter in the control law.