Decentralized predefined-time leaderless consensus-formation VFO control for nonholonomic multi-agent systems

This paper deals with the decentralized predefined-time leaderless consensus formation control problem for nonholonomic multi-agent systems. First, the predefined-time average consensus problem is investigated. Distributed observers, which interact with each other via an undirected communication topology, are designed to estimate, in a predefined-time, the average of their initial state using only local information. Then, based on these estimates, a predefined-time Vector-Field-Orientation (VFO) controller is applied, which guarantees that the multi-agent system achieves a desired formation. The VFO controller enables one to predict the paths for each agent and to avoid static obstacles. Some numerical results illustrate the interest of the proposed predefined-time leaderless consensus formation controller.