Leader-follower-based formation control of nonholonomic mobile robots with mismatched uncertainties via integral sliding mode

This article focuses on the control of a group of nonholonomic mobile robots. A leader-follower coordinated control scheme is developed to achieve formation maneuvers of such a multi-robot system. The scheme adopts the methodology of integral sliding mode control to form up and maintain the robots in predefined trajectories. The dynamic equations of the scheme are subject to mismatched uncertainties. The mismatched uncertainties challenge formation stabilization because they cannot be suppressed by the invariance of integral sliding mode control. In light of Lyapunov’s direct method, a sufficient condition is drawn to guarantee the reachability condition of integral sliding mode control in the presence of the mismatched uncertainties. To verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed strategy, simulation results are illustrated by an uncertain multi-robot system composed of three nonholonomic mobile robots.