Merging and splitting triangularly angle rigid formations

Zhengyang Liu

doi:10.1016/j.automatica.2026.112905

Merging and splitting triangularly angle rigid formations

2026-03-13

0

PRE

AI

DOI：10.1016/j.automatica.2026.112905

Original

Original request for help

Save

Abstract

En 中文

In recent years, multi-agent formation control based on graph rigidity theory has received broad attention and has become a popular research topic. When a multi-agent formation passes through a cluttered environment with complicated obstacles, one relatively fixed and rigid formation may no longer be applicable. To make a formation consisting of mobile agents efficiently pass through such an environment, we study the splitting and merging of formations. Firstly, we employ a set of interior angle constraints to describe the desired formation shape, which has more motion degrees of freedom compared with distance or bearing rigid formations. To ensure that two angle rigid sub-formations can be merged into one angle rigid formation, we develop a vertex sequential reduction method that finds the needed angle constraints to be added into the two angle rigid sub-formations. The formation splitting problem is similarly but reversely solved based on the developed vertex reduction method. Secondly, we design a distributed algorithm to achieve the sequential reduction process. Considering that redundant rigid formations have high robustness in many practical scenarios, we also design a method to construct and merge redundantly angle rigid formations. Finally, we design a formation control law for a group of mobile agents to achieve the formation merging and splitting tasks. Simulation examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed formation control law and the merging and splitting approaches.

Keywords:

formation control

graph rigidity

multi-agent systems

angle rigid formations

formation splitting and merging

Merging and splitting triangularly angle rigid formations

Abstract

Journal

Organization

Cited Papers