A decentralized architecture is proposed for autonomous establishment and maintenance of satellite formations. Such an architecture does not require a central supervisor, as the spacecraft can cooperatively track planned maneuvers and trajectories in the face of disturbances and uncertainties, while processing only local measurement information. If the planned maneuvers and trajectories are the...

In this article we address the problem of determining how a structured formation of autonomous undistinguishable agents can be reorganized into another, eventually non-rigid, formation based on changes in the environment, perhaps unforeseeable. The methodology can also be used to correctly position the agents into a particular formation from an initial set of random locations. Given the informa...

We describe a framework for controlling and coordinating a group of nonholonomic mobile robots equipped with range sensors, with applications ranging from scouting and reconnaissance, to search and rescue and manipulation tasks. We derive control algorithms that allow the robots to control their position and orientation with respect to neighboring robots or obstacles in the environment. We then...