Abstract
The problem of circumnavigating a moving target in a three dimensional setting by a network of agents while avoiding inter-agent collisions is addressed in this paper. A distributed control strategy is proposed for the multi-agent system to achieve three objectives: reaching the target plane with predesigned orientation, circulating around the target with prescribed radius, and avoiding collisions among agents. After representing the control objectives by three potential functions, the gradient fields of which are orthogonal to each other, the control law then is developed using the gradient vector field-based approach. The novelty of the proposed controller lies in the orthogonality of the vector fields, which decouples the control objectives and ensures global asymptotic convergence to the desired motion, subject to some mild initial condition constraints. The stability and convergence analysis are presented using Lyapunov tools, and the effectiveness of the proposed control strategy is demonstrated through numerical simulations.
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Recommended by Associate Editor Hyo-Sung Ahn under the direction of Editor Euntai Kim. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61433016, 61573134, 61733004, 61401046), National Science and Technology Support Project (NO.2015BAF11B01), Hunan Key Laboratory of Intelligent Robot Technology in Electronic Manufacturing (NO IRF 2018009) and also funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities.
Hang Zhong received the M.S. and B.S. degrees in automation from the College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 2013 and 2016, respectively. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. degree in control theory and application also in Hunan University. His current research interests include robotics modeling and control, visual servo control and path planning of the aerial robots.
Yaonan Wang received the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 1994. He was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Normal University of Defence Technology, Changsha, from 1994 to 1995. From 1998 to 2000, he was a Senior Humboldt Fellow in Germany, and, from 2001 to 2004, he was a Visiting Professor with the University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany. Since 1995, he has been a Professor with the College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University. His current research interests include robotics and image processing.
Zhiqiang Miao received the B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical and information engineering from Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 2010 and 2016, respectively. From 2016 to 2018, he was a post-doc fellow with The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong. Now, he is an Associated Professor with the College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University. His research interests include multirobot systems, cooperative control, and nonlinear system and control.
Jianhao Tan received his B.S. degree in the Forging Equipment and Engineering from Huazhong Technology College, Wuhan, China, in 1983, and an M.S. degree in the Pressure Process from Huazhong University of Engineering and Technology, Wuhan, China, in 1989, and a Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering from Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 2010. In 1989, He joined the College of Electrical and Infomation Engineering, Hunan University. He research interests include data mining, pattern recognition, system identification, and image processing.
Ling Li received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electronic Science and Technology from the College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 2014 and 2017, respectively. She joined the College of Electrical and Infomation Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, China. Her current research interests include embedded system design and visual servo control of the robots.
Hui Zhang received the B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in pattern recognition and intelligent system from Hunan University, Changsha, China, in 2004, 2007, and 2012, respectively. He is currently an Assistant Professor with the College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Changsha University of Science and Technology, Changsha, China. His research interests include machine vision and visual detection.
Rafael Fierro received the M.Sc. degree in control engineering from the University of Bradford, Bradford, UK, in 1990, and the Ph.D. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Texas at Arlington, in 1997. He is currently a Professor of the Department of Electrical Computer Engineering, University of New Mexico (UNM) where he has been since 2007. Prior to joining UNM, he held a postdoctoral appointment with the GRASP Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania and a faculty position with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University. His research interests include hybrid and embedded systems, heterogeneous multivehicle coordination, cooperative and distributed control of multi-agent systems, mobile sensor networks, and robotics. He directs the Multi-Agent, Robotics, Hybrid and Embedded Systems Laboratory at UNM. Dr. Fierro was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship, a 2004 National Science Foundation CAREER Award, and the 2007 International Society of Automation Transactions Best Paper Award. He is serving as associate editor for the Journal of Intelligent and Robotics Systems, IEEE Control Systems Magazine, and IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering.
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Zhong, H., Wang, Y., Miao, Z. et al. Circumnavigation of a Moving Target in 3D by Multi-agent Systems with Collision Avoidance: An Orthogonal Vector Fields-based Approach. Int. J. Control Autom. Syst. 17, 212–224 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-018-0005-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12555-018-0005-1