Varying gain MPC for consensus tracking with application to formation control of omnidirectional mobile robots

Abstract

This paper describes a formation control algorithm for omnidirectional mobile vehicles with high robust performance. It is shown that the associated nonlinear control problem can be made tractable, using the tensor-product transformation model, by transforming the complex nonlinear and uncertain model into linear parameter varying (LPV) form. Considering the convex hull of the dynamic model, the varying gain and model predictive control (MPC) are designed. In comparison with those nonlinear control methods, not only the complex designing process can be avoided, but also the effects of control constraints in fast paced dynamic environments can be restrained by the proposed algorithm. At last, the proposed controller is applied to formation control of the NuBot omnidirectional mobile robot. The simulation results prove its effectiveness.