Distributed Vision-Based Target Tracking Control Using Multiple Mobile Robots

Abstract

In this paper, a distributed vision-based control system is designed for mobile robots to address the target tracking problem while maintaining the specified formation among robots. The system mainly consists of two modules. One is for target identification and the other is for target tracking control. In the target identification module, the robot is controlled to pivot around its center and perform a survey of the environment using its on-board vision sensor. In the target tracking control module, a leader-follower control strategy is adopted to solve the target tracking and formation control problem of multiple robots. The proposed distributed vision-based control is experimentally tested using three QBot2s from Quanser, Inc. Results validated the proposed design.