Collisions-Free Distributed Cooperative Tracking Control for Nonlinear MASs With Limited Data Rate

This paper studies the problem of collision/obstacle avoidance in the distributed cooperative tracking control of nonlinear multi-agent systems (MASs) with limited data rate. The limited data rate constrains the speed at which agents make cooperative decisions, thus increasing the risk of collisions. To address this issue, a distributed command governor under the wireless network with limited data rate is provided. The distributed command governor intelligently adjusts the reference signals of agents, which generates safe formation shapes when facing the risk of collisions. Then, the distributed cooperative tracking task is accomplished without collisions, and the required data rate for the MAS to avoid collisions is also derived. Finally, the proposed scheme is applied to the cooperative tracking control problem of nonholonomic mobile robots.