Strategies for rendezvous and formation stabilization of multi-agent systems

In this thesis, four problems in the control of multi-agent systems are studied. First, a hierarchical cyclic pursuit scheme is introduced, and it is shown to yield significant advantages over traditional cyclic pursuit. Second, the control of a heterogeneous group of agents is explored. A global stability analysis is performed for two agents in cyclic pursuit, where each agent has a different kinematic model. Third, the problem of adapting curve shortening theory to the multi-agent setting is addressed. Motivated by this theory, the agents are viewed as the vertices of a polygon, and a linear polygon shortening scheme is proposed which exhibits several analogues to Euclidean curve shortening. Finally, the problem of stabilizing a group of agents to a formation is analyzed. By adapting the linear polygon shortening scheme, a local control strategy is proposed to stabilize the agents to the vertices of an equilateral polygon.