Bearing-Based Formation Control for Unicycle Agents with Unknown and Time-varying Linear Velocities of Leaders

This work investigates the formation control problem utilizing bearing measurements for unicycle agents within the leader-follower architecture. Different from traditional methods that require followers to measure the neighbors’ relative velocities or acquire the leaders’ velocities, in this work, followers don’t have to measure the relative velocities of other agents. Meanwhile, the leaders’ variable linear velocities remain unknown to the followers. Relying on the heading angles and maximum velocities of the leaders obtained through communication, a bearing-based control scheme designed for the followers is proposed, enabling all followers to converge to a target formation with the leaders during movement. Furthermore, considering two specific dynamics of the leaders, the corresponding control schemes are further extended. The stability of control schemes has been rigorously proved. Simulations have validated the efficacy of the control schemes under different dynamics of the leaders.