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

CardsList

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

  1. Distributed Non-Uniform Scaling Control of Multi-Agent Formation with Dynamic Agent Joining

    May 28, 2026Tao He, Gangshan JingMulti-Robot Formation ControlDistributed Control

    School of Automation, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China

  2. Orchestrating Wheeled Mobile Robots Online without Conflicts

    May 18, 2026Jianghong Dong, Yifeng Zhang, Wenhan Cao +4Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    School of Vehicle and Mobility, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, 117575, Singapore · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

  3. Distributed 3D Leader-Follower Formation Control with Field-of-View Safety via Control Barrier Functions

    May 17, 2026Immanuel R. Santjoko, Richie R. Suganda, Miao Pan +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlAerial Robotics

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004, USA · Department of Engineering Technology, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004, USA

  4. Multi-UAV Path Following using Vector-Field Guidance

    Apr 20, 2026Gautam Kumar, Amit Shivam, Ashwini RatnooMulti-Robot Formation ControlCollision Avoidance

    Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore, India 560012 · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Porto, Porto, Portugal

  5. On Feedback Speed Control for a Planar Tracking

    Apr 10, 2026Xincheng Li, Tengyue Liu, Udit HalderInput-to-State StabilityMulti-Robot Formation Control

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of South Florida

  6. Leaderless Collective Motion in Affine Formation Control over the Complex Plane

    Apr 7, 2026Jesus Bautista, Enric Morella, Lili Wang +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Agent Collaboration

    Department of Computer Engineering, Automation, and Robotics, and with IMAG, University of Granada, Spain. · Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Control Theory and Intelligent Systems, School of Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, China, 518055.

  7. FORMULA: FORmation MPC with neUral barrier Learning for safety Assurance

    Apr 6, 2026Qintong Xie, Weishu Zhan, Peter ChinMulti-Robot Formation ControlModel Predictive Control

    Thayer School of Engineering, Dartmouth College, NH 03784. · Department of Computer Science, The University of Manchester, Manchester M13 9PL, United Kingdom.

  8. Element-based Formation Control: a Unified Perspective from Continuum Mechanics

    Apr 5, 2026Kun Cao, Lihua XieMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Control Science and Engineering, College of Electronics and Information Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai 201804, China · Shanghai Institute of Intelligent Science and Technology, National Key Laboratory of Autonomous Intelligent Unmanned Systems, and Frontiers Science Center for Intelligent Autonomous Systems, Ministry of Education, Beijing 100816, China · School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798

  9. Enhancing Drone Light Shows Performances: Optimal Allocation and Trajectories for Swarm Drone Formations

    Mar 25, 2026Yunes AlqudsiTrajectory GenerationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

  10. Huddle: Parallel Shape Assembly using Decentralized, Minimalistic Robots

    Mar 18, 2026Khai Yi Chin, Tingwei Meng, Zhe Chen +2Robotic AssemblyMulti-Robot Formation Control

    Amazon Robotics

  11. The Geometry of Transmission Zeros in Distance-Based Formations

    Mar 16, 2026Solomon Goldgraber Casspi, Daniel ZelazoMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Coordination

    Both authors are with the Stephen B. Klein Faculty of Aerospace Engineering, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 320003, Israel

  12. Formation-Aware Adaptive Conformalized Perception for Safe Leader-Follower Multi-Robot Systems

    Mar 9, 2026Richie R. Suganda, Bin HuRobot SafetyMulti-Robot Formation Control

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004, USA. · Department of Engineering Technology, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77004, USA.

  13. Position-Based Flocking for Persistent Alignment without Velocity Sensing

    Feb 25, 2026Hossein B. Jond, Veli Bakırcıoğlu, Logan E. Beaver +3Multi-Agent ControlSwarm Robotics

    Department of Cybernetics, Czech Technical University in Prague, Prague, Czechia · Aksaray University, 68100, Aksaray, Türkiye · Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA +4

  14. Role-Adaptive Collaborative Formation Planning for Team of Quadruped Robots in Cluttered Environments

    Feb 20, 2026Magnus Norén, Marios-Nektarios Stamatopoulos, Avijit Banerjee +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Group, Department of Computer, Electrical and Space Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, 971 87 Lule˚a, Sweden

  15. Decentralized and Fully Onboard: Range-Aided Cooperative Localization and Navigation on Micro Aerial Vehicles

    Feb 18, 2026Abhishek Goudar, Angela P. SchoelligCooperative LocalizationRobot Navigation

    The authors are with the Learning Systems and Robotics Lab at the Technical University of Munich, Germany, and the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, Canada. They are also affiliated with the University of Toronto Robotics Institute, the Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence (MIRMI), and the Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

  16. Distributed Event-Triggered Distance-Based Formation Control for Multi-Agent Systems

    Sep 15, 2025Evangelos Psomiadis, Panagiotis TsiotrasMulti-Robot Formation ControlMulti-Agent Control

    D. Guggenheim School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332-0150, USA

  17. LLM-Flock: LLM-Driven Decentralized Multi-Robot Flocking via Influence-Based Consensus with Collision Avoidance

    May 10, 2025Peihan Li, Lifeng ZhouMulti-Robot Formation ControlSwarm Robotics

    Drexel University, United States

  18. Observability-Aware Control for Quadrotor Formation Flight with Range-only Measurement

    Nov 6, 2024H S Helson Go, Ching Lok Chong, Longhao Qian +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlCooperative Localization

    Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto, 4925 Dufferin St., North York, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T6 · Oxford University, OCIAM

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

    Dec 1, 2017Paulo 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