# A Multi-Robot Formation Platform based on an Indoor Global Positioning System
## 5 Conclusions and Future Works  
We propose a new multi-robot formation experimental platform based on an indoor global-positioning system. This general and low-cost multi-robot formation platform can provide the precise and real-time pose of every robot based on the Marvelmind Indoor Navigation System and the six-degree-of-freedom gyroscope MPU-6050. The former provides the centimeter-level precise position and the latter provides the orientation information of each robot. In addition, robots exchange information based on ESP8266 Wi-Fi communication module. Then, we performed and analyzed a set of leader-follower formation experiments by our platform, including formation forming and switching under deterministic environment, and a formation-maintaining experiment with the external disturbance. The results illustrate that our experimental platform can be applied to formation control successfully and verify the correctness and effectiveness of the theoretical methods for robot motion control in the multi-robot formation.  
Our general and low-cost multi-robot formation platform based on the indoor positioning system with three foundation technologies of actual pose acquisition, indoor global positioning, and multi-robot communication can be used in the fields of multi-robot coordination, formation control, and search and rescue missions.  
In the future, based on the indoor global-positioning system, other sensors will be equipped on the robot to provide pose information jointly by means of multi-sensor information fusion, so as to improve positioning accuracy of mobile robots. At the same time, the communication system will be improved to face the individual failures due to complex and unknown environments. In order to effectively reduce the impact of formation failure of a certain body robot on the formation, the existing peer-to-peer communication mode is promoted to the broadcast communication mode.  
The experiment video of the triangle formation switching can be found in [[https://youtu.be/7](https://youtu.be/7) WtsZoNVp5A]([https://youtu.be/7](https://youtu.be/7) WtsZoNVp5A). The experiment video of circle trajectory of the leader robot with one follower robot can be found in [[https://youtu.be/4](https://youtu.be/4) caScl5 PF_U]([https://youtu.be/4](https://youtu.be/4) caScl5 PF_U). The experiment video of the line trajectory of leader robot with three follower robots to realize a diamond formation can be found in [[https://youtu.be/NYSVTKw46](https://youtu.be/NYSVTKw46) vU]([https://youtu.be/NYSVTKw46](https://youtu.be/NYSVTKw46) vU). The experiment video of line trajectory of a triangle formation maintaining with external disturbance can be found in [[https://youtu.be/HCGjjoYARJc](https://youtu.be/HCGjjoYARJc)]([https://youtu.be/HCGjjoYARJc](https://youtu.be/HCGjjoYARJc)).  
[PERSON] designed the experimental framework and provided experimental and financial support; [PERSON] designed the leader-follower formation control; [PERSON] executed the experiment; [PERSON] analyzed the data; all the authors wrote the paper.  
This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation, China (No.51775435), and the Programme of Introducing Talents of Discipline to Universities (B13044).  
In this section you can acknowledge any support given which is not covered by the author contribution or funding sections. This may include administrative and technical support, or donations in kind (e.g., materials used for experiments).  
The authors declare no conflict of interest.