Potential-function-based shape formation in swarm simulation

• Published in: International journal of control, automation, and systems Vol. 12; no. 2; pp. 442 - 449
• Main Authors: Jung, Hahmin, Kim, Dong Hun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bucheon / Seoul Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems and The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers 01.04.2014; Springer Nature B.V; 제어·로봇·시스템학회
• Subjects: Collision avoidance; Construction; Control; Control systems; Diamonds; Distributed processing; Engineering; Mechatronics; Multiuser systems; Recognition; Robotics; Robots; Shape control; Simulation; Statistical analysis; Technical Notes and Correspondence; 제어계측공학; Formation control; local minimum; potential function; multiagent systems
• ISSN: 1598-6446; 2005-4092
• DOI: 10.1007/s12555-013-0133-6

This paper presents a potential-function-based formation shape control scheme for swarm simulation. The potential function is designed to avoid collision among agents, approach a destination, and achieve a certain shape formation around the destination. The agents move in a swarm to the formation position, which is generated from a reference point and the neighboring agents. In the framework, a local minimum case created by combining the potential repulsed from neighboring robots and that attracted from a reference point is presented; herein, a robot escapes from a local minimum using a virtual escape point after recognizing the trapped situation. Similarly, in the proposed framework, for a well-equipped formation shape, potential functions are designed to maintain the same relative distance between neighboring robots on a formation line, which also satisfies scalability for the number of agents. The simulation results show that the proposed approach can effectively construct elliptical, diamond, and heart-shaped formations for swarm agents.