This paper investigates a method for decentralized stabilization of vehicle formations using techniques from algebraic graph theory. The vehicles exchange information according to a pre-specified communication digraph, G. A feedback control is designed using relative information between a vehicle and its in-neighbors in G. We prove that a necessary and sufficient condition for an appropriate de...

A13, 4 A-class, 4 Abdiel, 105, 160, 264, 269, 311, 374, 434 Aboukir, 100 Acasta, 256–7, 264, 302, 417, 475–7 Acasta (K) class, 17, 20, 31 Achates, 393–7, 428 Acheron, 263–5 Acheron (I) class, 16, 31, 99, 156, 238 Achilles, 150 Acorn (H) class, 16 Active, 150–1, 264, 270, 402–3, 413 Active class, 16–17, 26 Agincourt, 22, 74, 283, 289–91, 303, 323, 329–31, 338, 406, 426, 463 Ajax, 66, 326, 472 Al...

Consensus algorithms allow multiple robots to achieve agreement on estimates of variables in a distributed manner, hereby coordinating the robots as a team, and enabling applications such as formation control and cooperative area coverage. These algorithms achieve agreement by relying only on local, nearest-neighbor communication. The problem with distributed consensus, however, is that a singl...

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...