Abstract: The leader-follower planetary formation control problem for multiple robots with double-integrator is studied, and an approach is proposed to transform the multi-robot formation control method into tracking control problem of desired virtual robot with varying velocity for each robot, and then the position and velocity tracking errors between each robot and its virtual robot converge to zero without any collision, while the formation system converges to the desired formation. Under the unified algorithm framework, two kinds of formation modes are realized respectively, including the followers moving around the leader formation (revolution Formation, RF) mode and the followers maintaining desired distance and velocity with the leader formation (desired formation, DF) mode. The RF mode is applied to the exploration mission for heterogeneous multi-robot system, and the DF mode is applied to the cooperation and coordination tasks for AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicle) and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicle). The stability of the control algorithm is analyzed through Lyapunov stability theory, and the effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by computer simulations.