  This paper introduces an approach to address the target enclosing problem
using non-holonomic multiagent systems, where agents autonomously self-organize
themselves in the desired formation around a fixed target. Our approach
combines global enclosing behavior and local collision avoidance mechanisms by
devising a novel potential function and sliding manifold. In our approach,
agents independently move toward the desired enclosing geometry when apart and
activate the collision avoidance mechanism when a collision is imminent,
thereby guaranteeing inter-agent safety. We rigorously show that an agent does
not need to ensure safety with every other agent and put forth a concept of the
nearest colliding agent (for any arbitrary agent) with whom ensuring safety is
sufficient to avoid collisions in the entire swarm. The proposed control
eliminates the need for a fixed or pre-established agent arrangement around the
target and requires only relative information between an agent and the target.
This makes our design particularly appealing for scenarios with limited global
information, hence significantly reducing communication requirements. We
finally present simulation results to vindicate the efficacy of the proposed
method.
