Distributed Formation Control of Unicycle-Like Vehicles Without Direct Distance Measurements

In this paper, we propose the distributed formation control law to drive a group of unicycle-like vehicles to converge to a formation with a same orientation. The vehicles do not rely on a global coordinate frame. The network of the vehicles forms an acyclic digraph with no directed loops. We design the control law for vehicles without using position or direct distance measurements. Then we analyze the convergence and the properties of the closed-loop system. Finally, our simulation results certify the effectiveness of the proposed control laws.