A Novel Consensus-Based Formation Control Scheme in the Image Space

Abstract

In this letter, we propose a novel distributed vision-based formation control operating in the image space, with free-flying cameras in a three dimensional space as agents. Two controllers are proposed, both formulated in terms of a formation image error, without using a global reference frame nor requiring the estimation of the 3D pose between agents. The proposed formation scheme allows flexibility in defining the desired formation, without constraining it to planar formations, for example. We give formal stability guarantees based on Lyapunov analysis and evaluate our approach in simulations under a variety of initial and desired conditions, numbers of agents and inter-agent connectivity.