Author(s)

Mark Bacon, Nejat Olgac, Rudy Cepeda-Gomez

Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA.

Control of multi-agent autonomous swarms is studied for targeted flocking exercises. The desired decentralized control takes into account robustness against modeling uncertainties as well as bounded unknown forces. In this analysis, we consider the task of driving multiple agents to a moving “target region”, as inter-agent repulsive forces help spread out the agents within the region. An unconventional form of sliding mode control is implemented to provide the robust attraction towards the region’s center. For robustness a finite “boundary layer” is conceived, which corresponds to the desired target region. The flocking control forces are intentionally softened inside this target region, allowing agents to create a uniformly spaced formation guided by the inter-agent repulsion forces. Examples are given for moving circular and elliptical regions which illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategy.

Multi-Agent Systems; Region Tracking; Sliding Mode Control

Bacon, M. , Olgac, N. and Cepeda-Gomez, R. (2012) Robust Region Tracking for Swarms via a Novel Utilization of Sliding Mode Control. Intelligent Control and Automation, 3, 98-109. doi: 10.4236/ica.2012.31012.