In this article, we address the bearing-only formation control problem of 3-D networked robotic systems with parametric uncertainties. The contributions of this article are two-fold: 1) the bearing-rigid theory is extended to solve the nonlinear robotic systems with the Euler-Lagrange-like model and 2) a novel almost global stable distributed bearing-only formation control law is proposed for the nonlinear robotic systems. Specifically, the robotic systems subject to nonholonomic constraints and dynamics are first transformed into a Euler-Lagrange-like model. By exploring the bearing-rigid graph theory, a backstepping approach is used to design the distributed formation controller. Simulations for 3-D robotics are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law. Compared to the distance-rigid formation control approach, the bearing-rigid approach guarantees almost global stability while naturally excluding flip ambiguities.

This paper investigates the formation control problem of heterogeneous discrete-time nonlinear multi-agent systems with structural uncertainties. The control objective is to make the outputs of agents reach a desired formation while tracking a leader. The formation control problem of heterogeneous discrete-time multi-agent systems is first converted into a robust output regulation problem, and then, a distributed formation control scheme based on output regulation framework is proposed. A $p$ -copy internal model is synthesized into the distributed formation control law such that the overall closed-loop system can be robust to structural uncertainties. It is shown that the heterogeneous discrete-time nonlinear multi-agent system can reach the desired formation regardless of small parameter permutations of agents under the proposed control law. Finally, simulation and experiment studies are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control law.

This article investigates the distributed affine formation maneuver control for collaborative autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) systems with the event-triggered data transmission mechanism among inter-ASVs. To achieve preset arbitrary configuration transformations in the case where the formation knowledge is assigned to only a part of ASVs, the affine image is employed to describe desired configurations. To ensure position and attitude configuration rigidities simultaneously, a synthetical constraint composed of the Laplacian matrices and the stress matrices is constructed. Besides, an algebraic relation between the synthetical constraint and the formation tracking error is established. The above tools enable the sliding mode technology to be used to the affine formation maneuver control of collaborative ASVs systems. It follows that a novel distributed event-triggered affine formation maneuver control scheme is developed for the collaborative ASVs systems. The advantages of the proposed control scheme are threefold: 1) the distributed affine formation maneuver control of collaborative second-order vehicles systems is achieved with changeable formation velocities and orientations; 2) the existing literatures adapt to developing the second-order distributed affine formation maneuver control based on the backstepping philosophy. In contrast, the sliding manifold replaces the backstepping philosophy here. Since the complexity explosion is circumvented, the proposed control scheme is relatively simple; and 3) the event-triggered data transmission mechanism among inter-ASVs is introduced, and neighbor velocities and accelerations are omitted for the control implementation. As a consequence, the communication resource usage can be reduced. Finally, the semi-physical simulations are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.

In this article, we consider the resilience problem in the presence of communication faults encountered in distributed secondary voltage and frequency control of an islanded alternating current microgrid. Such faults include the partial failure of communication links and some classes of data manipulation attacks. This practical and important yet challenging issue has been taken into limited consideration by existing approaches, which commonly assume that the measurement or communication between the distributed generations (DGs) is ideal or satisfies some restrictive assumptions. To achieve communication resilience, a novel adaptive observer is first proposed for each individual DG to estimate the desired reference voltage and frequency under unknown communication faults. Then, to guarantee the stability of the closed-loop system, voltage and frequency restoration, and accurate power sharing regardless of unknown communication faults, sufficient conditions are derived. Some simulation results are presented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed secondary control approach.

This paper investigates the localization problem of a network in 2-D and 3-D spaces given the positions of anchor nodes in a global frame and inter-node relative measurements in local coordinate frames. It is assumed that the local frames of different nodes have different unknown orientations. First, an angle-displacement rigidity theory is developed, which can be used to localize all the free nodes by the known positions of the anchor nodes and local relative measurements (local relative position, distance, local relative bearing, angle, or ratio-of-distance measurements). Then, necessary and sufficient conditions for network localizability are given. Finally, a distributed network localization protocol is proposed, which can globally estimate the locations of all the free nodes of a network if the network is infinitesimally angle-displacement rigid. The proposed method unifies local-relative-position-based, distance-based, local-relative-bearing-based, angle-based, and ratio-of-distance- based distributed network localization approaches. The novelty of this work is that the proposed method can be applied in both generic and non-generic configurations with an unkn

In this article, we consider the formation tracking problem of nonholonomic multiagent systems only using relative bearing measurements between the agents. Such a practical and important yet challenging issue has been taken into limited consideration by existing approaches, which usually requires additional measurements such as relative positions. The contributions of this article are two-fold. First, a fully distributed reference velocity estimator is proposed. Under the proposed adaptive estimator, each agent can estimate the time-varying reference velocity asymptotically. Second, an input-to-state stable controller is designed according to the bearing rigid theory. Under the proposed controller, the formation with bearing-only constraints can be achieved. Finally, the proposed scheme is demonstrated and its effectiveness is verified by presenting some simulation and experimental tests.