Formation control of road vehicles based on dynamic inversion and passivity

Abstract

This paper proposes a hierarchical formation stabilization method for vehicles having nonlinear dynamics. Supposing that the formation control problem is already solved for the case of linear vehicle dynamics, the method proposes a dynamic inversion based low-level control, which linearizes, at least approximately, the original vehicle dynamics so that the formation control can be applied. In this way a hierarchical control system is obtained, which is then completed with a passivity based external stabilization procedure for the stability of the entire system can be guaranteed. The proposed algorithm is tested by simulation on a formation control problem of road vehicles.