Leaderless Consensus-Based Formation Stabilization Control for Nonholonomic Vehicles in the GPS-Denied Environment

This article addresses the leaderless formation control problem for nonholonomic vehicles relying on relative pose measurement with input saturation. First, by transforming the formation control problem into the stabilization control problem, a consensus control strategy that satisfies nonholonomic constraints is designed. Second, a parallel formation control scheme is introduced as a transition from consensus control to rectangular formation pattern control via constructing virtual vehicles. Building on this foundation, a rectangular formation control law adapted to GPS-denied conditions is proposed, utilizing a system characteristic structure with geometric translation transformation, and becoming a crucial component in the autonomous formation control of intelligent unmanned vehicles. In the end, the merits of this controller in practical applications are substantiated by both numerical simulations and experiments.