Prescribed Time Leader-follower Formation Control of Nonholonomic Vehicles with Distributed State Observer

In this paper, the prescribed time leader-follower formation control of nonholonomic vehicles is considered by utilizing the distributed observer. Compared with the traditional methods, it is proposed to use a prescribed time distributed observer to estimate the leader’s states, while only using the information of neighboring vehicles. This method allows us to specify the desired convergence time, which is more accurate than the finite time method. Moreover, a prescribed time sliding surface is designed to achieve the formation control of nonholo-nomic vehicles based on the proposed distributed state observer. A simulation result is provided at the conclusion to confirm the viability of the suggested theoretical findings.