Group-aggregation of Hierarchical Containment Control for Homogeneous Multi-agent Systems in Precision Agriculture

The mixed planting, as one of the diversification strategies, provides the substitute for many costly inputs, such as fertilizers, pesticides, imported pollinators and irrigation. However, the lack of the farming technology and the expansion of the farming scale have resulted in extremely mismatch between desired yield and manpower. This paper considers groups of agents orderly moving into precise regions, which is suitable for simultaneously planting of different crops. The hierarchical containment control strategy with group-aggregation behavior is proposed under the transformed three-layer topology. Particularly, the dynamic hierarchical containment control protocol is designed such that a novel group-aggregation cooperation in the convex hull can be achieved. A new coupling strength coefficient based on the transformed three-layer topology is defined in the proposed control protocol. Finally, two examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed dynamic hierarchical containment control protocol for agricultural settings.