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Graph Theoretic Methods in the Stability of Vehicle Formations
American Control Conference, 2004. Proceedings of the 2004 (2004)
  • Gerardo Lafferriere, Portland State University
  • John S Caughman, IV, Portland State University
  • A. Williams, Portland State University
Abstract
This paper investigates the stabilization of vehicle formations using techniques from algebraic graph theory. The vehicles exchange information according to a pre-specified (undirected) communication graph, G. The feedback control is based only on relative information about vehicle states shared via the communication links. We prove that a linear stabilizing feedback always exists provided that G is connected. Moreover, we show how the rate of convergence to formation is governed by the size of the smallest positive eigenvalue of the Laplacian of G. Several numerical simulations are used to illustrate the results.
Publication Date
2004
Citation Information
Gerardo Lafferriere, John S Caughman and A. Williams. "Graph Theoretic Methods in the Stability of Vehicle Formations" American Control Conference, 2004. Proceedings of the 2004 Vol. 4 (2004)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/john_caughman/12/