Contraction Analysis of Multi-Agent Control for Guaranteed Capture of a Faster Evader1

Abstract

This work presents a verifiable condition for the selection of a sufficient number of pursuers to capture a faster evader. The condition is based on the tracking performance of a multi-agent control scheme. Trajectory tracking results are provided for both the effects of the multi-agent control topology and its execution by the pursuers in the context of input saturation. To that end, nonlinear contraction theory is leveraged because it provides a unifying framework for the analysis of systems subject to bounded disturbances. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to validate the proposed condition for sufficient pursuers selection.