Formation Control Strategy for Nonholonomic Intelligent Vehicles Based on Virtual Structure and Consensus Approach

This paper proposes a novel formation control strategy for nonholonomic intelligent vehicles based on virtual structure and consensus approach. The formation model is obtained based on the coordinate transformation and the virtual structure technique. The controllers are designed by using nonholonomic target tracking technique and leader-following consensus protocol. Depending on virtual structure approach and coordinate transformation, the formation control problem of multiple nonholonomic intelligent vehicles is converted into the target tracking and state consensus stabilization problem. Simulation and real-world experimental results show the correctness and effectiveness of the strategy.