Two-Layered Framework for Distributed Multiagent Formation Following.

This brief addresses a distributed region formation following problem for multiagent systems with the Euler-Lagrange dynamics. In the region control method, specific orders or positions of the agents are not required, but the main drawback is that a desired reference of the whole group is preplanned and made available to all agents. Here, we present a two-layered framework to achieve the distributed region formation following. In the first layer, we develop a smooth estimator to estimate the global reference information. In the second layer, we propose a control methodology using the estimated desired reference to achieve region formation following in a distributed manner. Unlike most existing methods for distributed tracking, which suffer from discontinuity in the controller, our proposed method is continuous and therefore chattering free. A rigorous Lyapunov-based analysis is utilized to show the stability of the overall system. It is shown that the stability of the overall system can be ensured if the estimation error converges at least exponentially. Finally, the experimental result is presented to illustrate the performance of the proposed methodology.