Bearing-Only Formation Maneuvering Control of Multi-agent Systems with Time-Varying Leaders’ Velocity

This paper studies bearing-only formation maneuver control of multi-agent systems modeled as double-integrators. The developed distributed control makes the multi-agent system form a desired geometric pattern in which the target formation is bearing-constrained. The controlled agents are supposed to sense the bearing and bearing rate with respect to several neighboring agents, and the interaction among agents is characterized by a fixed undirected graph. Different from existing control approaches where the target formation or the leaders move at a constant velocity, this paper investigates the case where the leaders' velocity is time-varying. For each follower agent, a finite-time velocity estimator is used to estimate its desired velocity. Then, a bearing-only control law is designed for the follower using a signum function, which renders the tracking error with respect to the leaders with time-varying velocity to converge to zero. The effectiveness of the control laws is illustrated by simulations.