Adaptive Formation Control of Multiagent Systems Based on Ratio-of-Distance Rigidity

This article studies rigid formation control of multiagent systems with nonlinear uncertainties. Unlike most existing research, ratio-of-distance (RoD) rigidity theory is introduced, and nonlinear uncertainties are thoroughly discussed. Desired formation shapes are formulated by a special class of RoD-based rigid frameworks. This article considers how to design distributed adaptive control protocols to drive all agents to acquire and maintain desired formation shapes while simultaneously maneuvering along with desired velocities. Both time-invariant and time-varying formation maneuvering are involved. Along with leader–follower strategy, subgraphs of RoD-based rigid graphs are extracted out as maneuvering velocity graphs to save resources of velocity communication. As for complicated time-varying situations, the nonsmooth stability analysis based on differential inclusion theory is employed for controller design.