Formation Control with Connectivity Maintenance for Double-Integrator Multi-Agent Systems

The network connectivity maintenance problem in formation control of mobile agents with double-integrator dynamics is addressed in this paper. Distributed potential field-based controllers are proposed for double-integrator agent group to maintain the connectivity of communication graph until the desired formation is achieved. We also investigate the connectivity preserving formation control with a virtual leader. Providing that at least one agent has information about the leader, all agents can asymptotically reach the desired formation and attain the same velocity as the virtual leader. The asymptotic stability analysis is presented with Lyapunov-like tools including LaSalle's invariance principle and Barbalat's lemma. Simulation results on a group of agents with double-integrator dynamics are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed strategies.