Fast Finite-Time Bipartite Formation With Obstacle Avoidance for Time-Delay Multiagent Systems: Application in Mobile Robot Swarm

The bipartite formation allows agents to achieve two formation structures in opposite directions and finds wide applications in social as well as natural situations. This article investigates the fast finite-time bipartite formation control problem for time-delay nonlinear multiagent systems operating in an obstacle environment. A fuzzy adaptive formation control strategy is proposed utilizing the leader-following method, under which the desired formation is achieved at a fast convergence rate. Since the practical actuator output is usually limited and susceptible to faults, its antisaturation and fault-tolerance capacities are thus considered in the controller construction. Moreover, an obstacle avoidance mechanism is embedded in the control strategy utilizing the artificial potential field method, ensuring the security operation of the formation. An improved Lyapunov–Krasovskii functional is constructed for the stability analysis, which makes full use of the time-delay information of the system. The fast finite-time convergence of the formation error system and the feasibility of obstacle avoidance behavior are verified with the Lyapunov stability theory and the designed energy function. Finally, the proposed control strategy is applied to the bipartite formation control task of a mobile robot swarm, and sufficient simulation results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical analysis.