Formation Control over Delayed Communication Networks

In this paper we address the problem of formation control of a group ofrobots that exchange information over a communication network characterized by anon negligible delay.We consider the Virtual Body Artificial Potential approach forstabilizing a group of robots at a desired formation. We show that it is possible tomodel the controlled group of robots as a port-Hamiltonian system and we exploitthe scattering framework to achieve a passive behavior of the controlled system andto stabilize the robots in the desired formation independently of any communicationdelay.