Implementation of Leader-Follower Formation Control of a Team of Nonholonomic Mobile Robots

Authors

  • Augie Widyotriatmo Institut Teknologi Bandung
  • Endra Joelianto Institut Teknologi Bandung
  • Agung Prasdianto Institut Teknologi Bandung
  • Hafidz Bahtiar Institut Teknologi Bandung
  • Yul Yunazwin Nazaruddin Institut Teknologi Bandung

Keywords:

Leader-follower, formation, nonholonomic, trajectory control, collision avoidance, multiple mobile robots.

Abstract

A control method for a team of multiple mobile robots performing leader-follower formation by implementing computing, communication, and control technology is considered. The strategy expands the role of global coordinator system and controllers of multiple robots system. The global coordinator system creates no-collision trajectories of the virtual leader which is the virtual leader for all vehicles, sub-virtual leaders which are the virtual leader for pertinent followers, and virtual followers. The global coordinator system also implements role assignment algorithm to allocate the role of mobile robots in the formation. The controllers of the individual mobile robots have a task to track the assigned trajectories and also to avoid collision among the mobile robots using the artificial potential field algorithm. The proposed method is tested by experiments of three mobile robots performing leader-follower formation with the shape of a triangle. The experimental results show the robustness of formation of mobile robots even if the leader is manually moved to the arbitrary location, and so that the role of a leader is taken by the nearest mobile robot to the virtual leader.

Author Biographies

Augie Widyotriatmo, Institut Teknologi Bandung

Augie Widyotriatmo (b. 1977) received his B. Eng. in Engineering Physics and M. Eng. in Instrumentation and Control from the Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia in 2002 and 2006, respectively, and Ph.D. degree in Mechanical Engineering from Pusan National University, South Korea in 2011, in 2011. He joined the Faculty of Industrial Technology as a faculty member for Engineering Physics program in the Institut Teknologi Bandung Indonesia in 2010. He received the Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology Award for most cited paper in 2010 and ITB Honor for Contribution in Innovation in 2016. He was a visiting scholar in the University of Melbourne, Australia, in November-December 2016. His research interests include robotics, nonlinear control, energy optimization, control, and automation, biomedical instrumentation, automation system, and power system control. Dr. Widyotriatmo is an IEEE Member. He is an associate editor in the Journal of Measurements, Electronics, and Systems (JMECS). He was the Guest Editor in the Internetworking Indonesia Journal. He was the General Chairs of the 3rd International Conference on Instrumentation, Control, and Automation in 2013 and the IEEE Conference on Technology, Informatics, Management, Engineering, and Environment in 2013.

Endra Joelianto, Institut Teknologi Bandung

Endra Joelianto (b. 1966) received his B. Eng. in Engineering Physics from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia in 1990, and  his Ph.D. degree in Engineering from The Australian National University (ANU), Australia in 2002. Since 1999, he has been with the Engineering Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, where he is currently a Senior Lecturer. He has been a Senior Research Fellow in the Centre for Unmanned System Studies (CENTRUMS), Bandung Institute of Technology, Bandung, Indonesia since 2007. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Telecommunication and Information Technology Institute (TITR), University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia in February 2002. He was a Visiting Scholar in the Smart Robot Center, Department of Aerospace and Information Engineering, Konkuk University, Seoul, Korea in October 2010. His research interest includes hybrid control systems, discrete event systems, computational intelligence, robust control, unmanned systems and intelligent automation. He has edited one book on intelligent unmanned systems published by Springer, 2009 and published more than 100 research papers. Dr. Joelianto is an IEEE Member and IEEE Indonesia Control Systems/Robotics Automation Joint Chapter Chair. He is the Chairman of Society of Automation, Control and Instrumentation, Indonesia. He is an Editor of the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence (IJAI) and the International Journal of Intelligent Unmanned Systems (IJIUS). He was the Guest Editor at the International Journal of Artificial Intelligence (IJAI), the International Journal of Imaging and Robotics (IJIR) and the International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Statistics (IJAMAS).

Agung Prasdianto, Institut Teknologi Bandung

Agung Prasdianto (b. 1994) received his B. Eng. in Engineering Physics from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia in 2014. He is a research assistant at Intelligent Control and Automation, Engineering Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung.

Hafidz Bahtiar, Institut Teknologi Bandung

Hafidz Bahtiar (b. 1994) received his B. Eng. in Engineering Physics from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia in 2015. He is a research assistant at Intelligent Control and Automation, Engineering Physics, Institut Teknologi Bandung.

Yul Yunazwin Nazaruddin, Institut Teknologi Bandung

Yul Yunazwin Nazaruddin (b. 1957) received his B.Eng. in Engineering Physics
from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia, in 1982, both the M.Sc. and DIC
in Electrical Engineering from Imperial College of Science and Technology,
University of London, UK, in 1985, and the Dr.-Ing. in Electrical Engineering from Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, in 1994. He is currently a professor and the Chair of the Instrumentation and Control Research Group in the Faculty of Industrial Technology at Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia.  He was visiting scholar at the Department of Control and Systems Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan, June to September , 1998, and in October, 2002. He was also a visiting scientist at the Institute for Process Automation, Faculty for Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Kaiserslautern, Germany, in January, 2001. Prof. Nazaruddin received the IFAC Japan Foundation Scholarship for paper presentation at the 14th IFAC World Congress, Beijing, China, 1999, and  won an Award of Challengers Problem of AUN-SEED Field Wise Seminar (FWS) Benchmark Problem on Robust Stabilization of a Double Inverted Pendulum which was presented at SICE’2007 Conference, Kagawa, Japan, received the Best Oral Presentation  at the 4th International Conference on Computational Intelligence, Robotics & Autonomous Systems (CIRAS’2007), Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand, in November , 2007, and recently received the Best Paper Award at the 5th International Conference on Instrumentation, Control and Automation (ICA’2017), Yogyakarta, in August, 2017. He is an IEEE Member and has been guest editors and reviewers for numerous journals and papers for international conferences, published more than 150 research papers. He has been a Senior Research Fellow in the National Centre for Sustainable Transportation Technology (NCSTT) at Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia. Prof. Nazaruddin was appointed as Education Attaché at the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Berlin, Germany (2008-2012) and the Chair of the Center of Data & Statistics for Education at the Indonesian Ministry of Education and Culture (2012-2015). Prof. Nazaruddin’s research interests include theory and applications of advanced instrumentation and control techniques for industrial control and automation, robotics, mechatronics and intelligent systems.

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Published

2017-12-04

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 6 (2017): International Journal of Computers Communications & Control (December)

Section

Articles

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