Leader-Following Formation Control of Multiple Robots with Uncertainties through Sliding Mode and Nonlinear Disturbance Observer

This paper presents a control scheme for the leader-following formation of multiple robots. The control scheme combines the sliding mode control (SMC) method with the nonlinear disturbance observer (NDOB) technique. The formation dynamics suffer from uncertainties because the individual robots are uncertain. Concerning such formation uncertainties, the leader-following formation dynamics are modeled. Assuming that the formation uncertainties have an unknown boundary, an NDOB-based observer was designed to estimate the formation uncertainties. A sliding surface containing the observer outputs has been defined. Regarding the sliding surface, an SMC-based controller was investigated to form uncertain robots. A sufficient condition in the sense of the Lyapunov theory was proven such that the formation system is asymptotically stable. Herein, some comparison results between the sole SMC method and the second-order SMC method are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and feasibility of the control scheme for multiple robots in the presence of uncertainties.