Plug-and-Play Distributed Fencing of Multi-Vehicle Systems for Multiple Uncooperative Targets With Dynamic Radius

This paper investigates the multiple target fencing problem of multi-vehicle systems (MVSs), addressing a group of uncooperative targets (GUT) with an unknown dynamic target radius. A plug-and-play distributed multiple target fencing strategy is proposed that operates independently of global information, comprising a distributed fencing center observer, a distributed fencing radius estimator, and a distributed balanced fencing controller. Under this strategy, all vehicles can observe a fencing center within the GUT's convex hull and a dynamic fencing radius in finite time. Moreover, dynamic balanced fencing for the GUT is achieved, ensuring the convergence of all vehicle-center distances to the dynamic fencing radius and an equal angle distribution among vehicles. Furthermore, the plug-and-play feature of this strategy enables vehicles to join or leave the MVS and new targets to join the GUT during the fencing process. In contrast, the remaining vehicles can still achieve the multiple target fencing without requiring parameter adjustments for activated vehicles. The strategy's efficacy is validated through rigorous theoretical analysis and corroborated by numerical experiments.