Anonymous Dynamic Formation Control of Multiagent Systems With Obstacle Avoidance

Formation control is a key technology for multi-agent collaboration to complete certain tasks. Reliability is the core of multi-agent formation control technology. The formation topology of most existing formation control algorithms is random, and these algorithms have specific restrictions on obstacle boundary. To address these issues, a novel anonymous dynamic formation control algorithm with obstacle avoidance is proposed. In this algorithm, we assume that the agent cannot distinguish between other agents and obstacles within its sensing radius. Then, we divide the virtual leaders into the target virtual leader, formation virtual leaders, and bypass virtual leaders. The target virtual leader forms the broadcast sequence of the formation by dynamically planning its geometric shape, and sends the sequence to the agents. The agent selects a formation virtual leader and follows it to achieve desired formation. The agent switches to follow a bypass virtual leader to navigate around the obstacles when it perceives obstacles preventing it from following the formation virtual leaders. After navigating around the obstacles, the agent follows the formation virtual leader to restructure the formation. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm can achieve dynamic formation, relax obstacle boundary constraints, and has high reliability in formation construction and obstacle avoidance.