  One major challenge in implementation of formation control problems stems
from the packet loss that occur in these shared communication channel. In the
presence of packet loss the coordination information among agents is lost.
Moreover, there is a move to use wireless channels in formation control
applications. It has been found in practice that packet losses are more
pronounced in wireless channels, than their wired counterparts. In our
analysis, we first show that packet loss may result in loss of rigidity. In
turn this causes the entire formation to fail. Later, we present an estimation
based formation control algorithm that is robust to packet loss among agents.
The proposed estimation algorithm employs minimal spanning tree algorithm to
compute the estimate of the node variables (coordination variables).
Consequently, this reduces the communication overhead required for information
exchange. Later, using simulation, we verify the data that is to be transmitted
for optimal estimation of these variables in the event of a packet loss.
Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is illustrated using
suitable simulation example.
