Leader Based Cyclic Pursuit

Abstract

In this work a system of autonomous agents engaged in cyclic pursuit (under

constant bearing (CB) strategy) is considered, for which one informed agent (the

leader) also senses and responds to a stationary beacon. Building on the framework

proposed in a previous work on beacon-referenced cyclic pursuit, necessary and suffi-

cient conditions for the existence of circling equilibria in a system with one informed

agent are derived, with discussion of stability and performance. In a physical testbed,

the leader (robot) is equipped with a sound sensing apparatus composed of a

real time embedded system, estimating direction of arrival of sound by an Interaural

Level and Phase Difference Algorithm, using empirically determined phase and level

signatures, and breaking front-back ambiguity with appropriate sensor placement.

Furthermore a simple framework for implementing and evaluating the performance

of control laws with the Robot Operating System (ROS) is proposed, demonstrated,

and discussed.