Multi-Robot Formation Control

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Overview

The field studies how teams of robots can hold a desired shape, move together, and reconfigure around obstacles or changing tasks. Common approaches include leader-follower and distance- or bearing-based control, graph Laplacians and rigidity methods, and predictive controllers paired with control barrier functions for collision avoidance. Systems increasingly combine these controllers with onboard vision or range sensing, cooperative localization, and learned policies, with evaluations spanning UAVs, ground robots, and boats in simulation and hardware trials. A central challenge is achieving reliable coordination with limited sensing and communication while scaling to larger teams and adapting safely to uncertainty, failures, and dynamic environments.

Latest papers

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49 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, down 60% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. Learning Side-by-Side Navigation for Personal Mobility Vehicles from Human Drivers

    Oct 27, 2026Luis Yoichi Morales, Florent FerreriMulti-Robot Motion PlanningAutonomous Driving

  2. Distributed Swarm Morphogenesis with Neural Cellular Automata

    Oct 22, 2026Ray Verma, Eliseo Ferrante, Anthony TzesSwarm RoboticsRobotic Construction

    Department of Computer Science, New York University Abu Dhabi United Arab Emirates · Department of Electrical Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

  3. CALM: Decentralized Control of Cooperative Aerial Manipulation with Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

    Oct 13, 2026Jiaxi Huo, Petre Ricioppo, Fausto Francesco LizzioAerial ManipulationDecentralized MARL

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy

  4. An Optimal Algorithm for Changing from Longitudinal to Latitudinal Formation of Autonomous Aircraft Squadrons

    Oct 13, 2026Paulo André Sperandio Giacomin, Elder Moreira HemerlyMulti-Robot Formation ControlAerial Robotics

    Universidade Estadual de Santa Cruz Departamento de Ciências Exatas e Tecnológicas - Área de Informática Ilhéus-BA, Brasil · Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica Departamento de Sistemas e Controle - Divisão de Engenharia Eletrônica São José dos Campos-SP, Brasil

  5. Min-Max Uniform Circle Formation by Asynchronous Mobile Robots

    Oct 4, 2026Animesh Maiti, Prakhar Shukla, Subhash BhagatMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Systems

    Department of Mathematics Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

  6. Controlling Collectives of AI Agents in Reasoning Space with Spatial Transformers

    Sep 23, 2026Frederic Vatnsdal, Roshan Gopal, Romina Garcia Camargo +2Multi-Agent LLM SystemsSwarm Robotics

    Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, USA · School of Arts and Sciences, University of Pennsylvania, USA · GRASP Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, USA

  7. Vision-based Underwater Formation Control With Input Saturations via Barrier Lyapunov Functions

    Sep 22, 2026Nicola De Carli, João Zenário, Victor Nan Fernandez-Ayala +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlLyapunov-Based Control

  8. Conflicting Pattern Formation by Teams of Anonymous, Fully Disoriented Robots

    Sep 20, 2026Animesh Maiti, Prakhar Shukla, Subhash BhagatMulti-Robot Formation ControlMobile Robotics

    Department of Mathematics, Indian Institute of Technology Jodhpur Jodhpur, Rajasthan, India

  9. Mobile Multi-Robot Navigation under Runtime Uncertainty via Koopman Operator Learning and Nonlinear Model Predictive Control

    Sep 12, 2026Xiaobin Zhang, Konstantinos KarydisRobot NavigationNonlinear MPC

    University of California, Riverside, Riverside CA 92551, USA

  10. Distributed Stochastic Optimal Control for Pattern-Oriented Swarms

    Sep 11, 2026Qingrui Zhang, Chenghao Yu, Feng Xue +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlSwarm Robotics

    School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518107, P.R. China

  11. Freehand Sketching for End-User Programming of Robot Swarms

    Sep 10, 2026Riwa Karam, Ian Kuo, Magnus EgerstedtMulti-Robot Formation ControlSwarm Robotics

    Samueli School of Engineering, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, 92697, USA · University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, 27599, USA

  12. Adaptive stabilization of a leaderless bearing-constrained formation with disturbances

    Sep 6, 2026Minh Hoang Trinh, Chuong Van Nguyen, Quoc Van Tran +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlRobust Control

    East Asia University of Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam · Viterbi School of Engineering – Department of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern California, CA, USA and Ghost Robotics, Philadelphia, PA, USA · Department of Mechatronics, School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanoi University of Science and Technology, Hanoi, Vietnam +1

  13. Formation Matrix and Energy-based Control of Multi-Agent Systems

    Sep 3, 2026Martín Crespo, Sergio Junco, Matías NacusseMulti-Robot Formation Control

    Automation and Control Systems Laboratory - FCEIA, National University of Rosario, Argentine

  14. Vision-Based Leader-Follower Formation Control for Cooperative UAVs in GPS-Degraded Environments

    Sep 1, 2026Deekshitha Angadi, Naveena Budda, Vikas Agarwal +4Multi-Robot Formation ControlAerial Robotics

    AI, IoT and Robotics Lab (AIR Lab), UAVs Group, Autonomous Robotics Systems Limited, Hyderabad, India · Department of Microelectronics and VLSI Design, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India · Department of Internet of Things, Ideabytes Software India Private Limited, Hyderabad, India +5

  15. Autonomous robotic bridging using distributed swarm control without inter-agent communication

    Sep 1, 2026Vishwaak C. Thamaraiselvan, Cody L. Lundberg, Michail Theofandis +2Multi-Robot Formation ControlRobotic Construction

    The University of Texas at Arlington Research Institute (UTARI), Fort Worth, TX

  16. FF-MPCC: High-speed Agile Formation Flight with Model Predictive Contouring Control

    Aug 21, 2026Aditya Dandwate, Vit Kratky, Parakh M. Gupta +2Multi-Robot Formation ControlAerial Robotics

    Multi-robot Systems Group, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czech Technical University in Prague, Czech Republic

  17. Task-Oriented Formation Decision via Reinforcement Learning: Herding an Attacking Swarm

    Aug 10, 2026Zhaozong Wang, Guibin Sun, Jinyong Chen +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlRL for Robotics

    School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China

  18. Distributed Motion Planning with Safety Guarantees for Self-Reconfiguring Robotic Boats

    Jul 22, 2026Alejandro Gonzalez-Garcia, Wei Wang, Wei Xiao +4Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    MECO Research Team, Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Belgium · Marine Robotics Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706 USA · School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, and with M3S, SMART, Singapore +2

  19. Laplacian Spectral Shaping for Non-Uniform Scaling Formation Control of Open Multi-Agent Systems

    Jul 18, 2026Tao He, Gangshan JingMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Agent Control

    School of Automation, Chongqing University, Chongqing, 400044, PRC

  20. Implicit Virtual Leader: Decentralized Vision-Only Relative Pose Estimation for Multi-Robot Formations

    Jul 17, 2026Shiyuan Yang, Zelin Wang, Zhijia Tao +8Multi-Robot Formation ControlRelative Pose Estimation

  21. Flatness-Preserving Residual Learning for Real-Time Tight Quadrotor Formation Flight

    Jul 14, 2026Pei-An Hsieh, Fengjun Yang, Nikolai Matni +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlResidual Dynamics Learning

    1GRASP Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, PA, USA

  22. EFLUX: Elastic Multi-Robot Formation Navigation and Adaptation with Agentic LLMs

    Jul 13, 2026Jinyuan Zhang, Yuwei Wu, Guangyao Shi +3Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    GRASP Lab, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA · Department of Computer Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA

  23. From Non-Rigid to Rigid: Safe Acquisition of Rigid Communication Graphs under Limited Sensing

    Jul 11, 2026Saharsh, Vedhas Talnikar, Pushpak JagtapMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Agent Control

    Department of Cyber Physical Systems · Indian Institute of Science · Bengaluru, 560012, India

  24. High-Precision Formation Control for Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems via Hierarchical Hybrid Physics-Informed Deep Reinforcement Learning

    Jul 3, 2026Yanzhou Li, Guangli Chen, Xiao-Meng Li +3Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Systems

    Dongguan Key Laboratory of Intelligent Equipment and Smart Industry, School of Advanced Engineering, Great Bay University, Dongguan 523000, China · Chair of Applied Statistics, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany · School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Guangzhou University, Guangzhou 510006, China +2

  25. Multi-UAV Formation Cooperative Obstacle Avoidance and Adaptive Shape Deformation Control in Complex Environments Based on BI-APF-RRT and Affine Transformation

    Jun 29, 2026Yiliang Wu, Weican Chen, Yendo HuMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    College of Marine Information Engineering, Jimei University, Xiamen, China

  26. Topological Online Learning for Displacement-based Formation Control

    Jun 22, 2026Saksham Sharma, Shubhankar Gupta, Sumant A Gunagi +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlRobust Control

    ArtGarage, Indian Institute of Science, India · Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science, India

  27. Shape Formation for the Cooperative Transportation of Arbitrary Objects Using Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

    Jun 8, 2026Mohamed Sayed, Wolfram Burgard, Tanja Katharina KaiserMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Technology Nuremberg, Germany

  28. Cooperative Circumnavigation for Multiple Unmanned Surface Vehicles Without External Localization

    Jun 3, 2026Xueming Liu, Lin Li, Xiang Zhou +2Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Coordination

    School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sun Yat-sen University (Shenzhen Campus), Shenzhen, China

  29. RSC: Decentralized Rigid Formation Flocking for Large-Scale Swarms via Hybrid Predictive Control and Online Reconfiguration

    Jun 2, 2026Ganyu Zou, Linhan Wang, Chen Dai +2Robotic ControlMulti-Robot Formation Control

  30. FLIP: Real-Time and Resilient Formation Planning for Large-Scale DIstributed Swarms via Point Cloud Registration

    May 28, 2026Yuan Zhou, Guangtong Xu, Zhenyu Hou +2Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China · Huzhou Institute, Zhejiang University, Huzhou 313000, China