Distributed Event-Triggered Distance-Based Formation Control for Multi-Agent Systems

Abstract:This paper addresses collaborative formation control for multi-agent systems with limited resources. We consider a team of robots tasked with achieving a desired formation from an arbitrary initial configuration. To reduce unnecessary control updates and conserve resources, we propose a distributed event-triggered formation controller. Unlike the well-studied linear formation controllers, the proposed controller is nonlinear and relies on inter-agent distance measurements. Control updates are triggered only when the measurement error exceeds a state-dependent threshold, ensuring system stability while reducing actuation effort. We also employ a distributed control barrier function to guarantee inter-agent collision avoidance. The proposed controller is validated through simulations and real-world experiments involving different communication topologies, scalability tests, and variations in design parameters, and is also compared to periodic triggering strategies. Results demonstrate that the event-triggered approach significantly reduces control effort while preserving formation performance.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2509.12390 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2509.12390v3 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2509.12390 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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