Tube-Based Robust Obstacle Avoidance and Following Control for Vehicle Formations

This paper presents a robust planning and control framework for vehicle formations, by proposing a safety-aware obstacle-avoidance planner and a formation-following controller. Specifically, a tube-based model predictive controller is designed based on a robust positively invariant (RPI) set for nonholonomic vehicles. Leveraging the RPI set together with the vehicle size and planning position mismatch, a safe region can be constructed for each follower. Subsequently, this region is actuated in a robust rapidly exploring random tree star planner via safety-aware collision checking. The overall scheme exhibits strong robustness in both planning and control, as validated by simulations.