Formation Control

This monograph introduces recent developments in formation control of distributed-agent systems. Eschewing the traditional concern with the dynamic characteristics of individual agents, the book proposes a treatment that studies the formation control problem in terms of interactions among agents including factors such as sensing topology, communication and actuation topologies, and computations. Keeping pace with recent technological advancements in control, communications, sensing and computation that have begun to bring the applications of distributed-systems theory out of the industrial sphere and into that of day-to-day life, this monograph provides distributed control algorithms for a group of agents that may behave together. Unlike traditional control laws that usually require measurements with respect to a global coordinate frame and communications between a centralized operation center and agents, this book provides control laws that require only relative measurements and communications between agents without interaction with a centralized operator. Since the control algorithms presented in this book do not require any global sensing and any information exchanges with a centralized operation center, they can be realized in a fully distributed way, which significantly reduces the operation and implementation costs of a group of agents.

Formation Control will give both students and researchers interested in pursuing this field a good grounding on which to base their work.

Presents generally applicable distributed formation control algorithms Helps the reader to overcome perceived shortcomings with widespread consensus-base methods Provides a framework for motivating new research and background to establish graduate students in the subject

Autorentext
Hyo-Sung Ahn is a professor and Dasan professor at the School of Mechanical Engineering, Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST), Gwangju, Korea. He received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Utah State University, Logan, in 2006. Since July 2007, he has been with the School of Mechatronics and School of Mechanical Engineering, GIST. Before joining GIST, he was a senior researcher with the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea. His research interests include formation control, distributed control, aerospace navigation and control, network localization, and learning control.

Inhalt
Background.- Part I: Gradient Control Laws.- Global.- Local Stabilization.- Persistent Formations.- Part II: Formation Control via Orientation Alignment.- Formation Control via Orientation Alignment.- Formation Control via Orientation and Position Estimation.- Formation Control via Global Orientation Alignment.- Part III: Bearing-Based Formation Control.- Formation Control via Bearing Measurements.- Bearing-Based Formation Control via Global Orientation Alignment.- Part IV: Advanced Topics.- Moving Formations.- K(n) Formation and Resizing.- Network Localization.- Appendix: Mathematical Background.