Collective rotating motions of second-order multi-agent systems in three-dimensional space

This paper addresses collective rotating motions of second-order multi-agent systems in three-dimensional space (3D). Two distributed control protocols are proposed and sufficient conditions are derived under which all agents rotate around a common point with a specified formation structure. Simulation results are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.

► Collective rotation motions in 3D are studied, which can be applied to formation flight of satellites and circular mobile sensor networks.
► Two distributed control protocols are given to make all agents move around a common point with a desired formation structure.
► The protocols are robust to parameter changes and the desired formation can be arbitrarily set except for some singular points.