Adaptive leader-follower formation control of non-holonomic mobile robots using active vision

This study is concerned with the leader-follower formation control of non-holonomic mobile robots without communication. A pan-controlled camera is the sole sensor used by the follower to observe the leader. A new vision-based formation system without range states is proposed, which eliminates the need of inter-robot range estimation. An adaptive formation controller and an adaptive camera controller are designed in the presence of unknown leader's velocities and vision-related parameters. A parameter projection algorithm is integrated into the controllers to bound the control inputs. The camera controller ensures the stable observation of the leader's features. Thus the camera constantly provides visual measurements for the formation controller which guarantees the formation maintenance. Simulation and experimental results verify the effectiveness of the proposed active vision-based formation control approach.