Finite-Time Bearing-Only Formation Tracking of Heterogeneous Mobile Robots with Collision Avoidance

This brief proposes a bearing-only collision-free
formation coordination strategy for networked heterogeneous
robots, where each robot only measures the relative bearings of its
neighbors to achieve cooperation. Different from many existing
studies that can only guarantee global asymptotic stability (i.e.,
the formation can only be formed over an infinite settling period),
a gradient-descent control protocol is designed to make the robots
achieve a target formation within a given finite time. The stability
of the multi-robot system is guaranteed via Lyapunov theory, and
the convergence time can be defined by users. Moreover, we also
present sufficient conditions for collision avoidance. Finally, a
simulation case study is provided to verify the effectiveness of
the proposed approach.