Formation of differential-drive vehicles with field-of-view constraints for enclosing a moving target

Abstract

An emerging application of multirobot systems is the monitoring of a dynamic event. Here, the goal is to enclose and track a moving target by attaining a desired geometric formation around it. By considering a circular pattern configuration for the target enclosing, the multirobot system is able to perform full perception of the target along its motion. In the proposed system, the robots rely only on their onboard vision sensor without external input to complete the task. The key problem resides in overcoming the motion and visual constraints of the agents. In particular, differential-drive robots with limited sensing, that must maintain visibility of the moving target as it navigates in the environment, are considered. A novel approach to characterize the motion of the robots in the formation that allows to enclose and track the target while overcoming their limited field of view (FOV) is presented. The proposed approach is illustrated through simulations.