Distributed adaptive fixed-time formation control for second-order multi-agent systems with collision avoidance

Abstract In this work, the distributed fixed-time formation control problem for a group of second-order multi-agent systems is investigated with consideration of collision avoidance, external disturbances, and connected undirected topology. As a stepping stone, a novel distributed fixed-time sliding manifold is proposed to achieve the predefined convergence performance. Furthermore, by combining repulsive potential function with the presented sliding manifold, an adaptive fixed-time formation protocol is developed to guarantee the tracking errors converge to small regions of zero, whilst providing collision-avoidance ability for multiple agents. Finally, numerical simulations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed protocol.