Generalized cyclic algorithms for formation acquisition and control

This paper presents a new approach to distributed nonlinear control for formation acquisition and maintenance, inspired by recent results on cyclic topologies and based on tools from contraction theory. First, simple nonlinear control laws are derived to achieve global exponential convergence to basic symmetric formations. Next, convergence to more complex structures is obtained using control laws based on the idea of convergence primitives, linear combinations of basic control elements. All control laws use only local information and communication to achieve a desired global behavior.