Control of Self-Organizing Formations Autonomous Agents using Velocity Potential Fields for Material Transfer

Mobile robot formations differ in accordance to the mission, environment and robot abilities. In the case of decentralized control, the ability to achieve the shapes of these formations needs to be built in the controllers of each autonomous robot. In this paper is investigated self-organizing formations control for material transfer, as an alternative to Automatic Guided Vehicles (AGVs). Leader-follower approach is applied for controllers design to drive the robots toward the goal. The results confirm the ability of velocity potential approach for motion control of both self-organizing formations.