Angle-Constrained Formation Maneuvering of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

In a global positioning system (GPS)-denied environment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) rely on local sensing-based formation maneuvering approaches for collective motion. To improve mission efficiency by reducing the total sensing requirements on all UAVs, this article proposes a leader-follower f...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on control systems technology 2023-07, Vol.31 (4), p.1-14
Main Authors: Chen, Liangming, Xiao, Jiaping, Lin, Reuben Chua Hong, Feroskhan, Mir
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Algorithms
Angle constraints
Attitude control
Autonomous aerial vehicles
Constraints
Control algorithms
Control theory
Controllability
direction measurements
Distance measurement
formation maneuvering of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
Global positioning systems
GPS
leader–follower framework
Maneuvers
Position measurement
Quadrotors
Rotors
Sensors
Shape
Shape control
Unmanned aerial vehicles
Yaw
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Description
Summary:In a global positioning system (GPS)-denied environment, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) rely on local sensing-based formation maneuvering approaches for collective motion. To improve mission efficiency by reducing the total sensing requirements on all UAVs, this article proposes a leader-follower formation maneuvering framework with two leaders, where the followers will track the two leaders and maintain a desired angle-constrained formation with respect to the leaders using direction-only measurements, i.e., removing the need for inter-UAV distance measurements for the followers. To enable the UAV formation to maneuver in translation, rotation, and scaling simultaneously, the desired formation shape is specified by a set of interior angle constraints. By assigning each UAV's yaw angle and position as the four controllable variables, an estimation-based attitude control algorithm is designed. For the UAVs' position control, the designed formation maneuvering algorithm consists of a velocity tracking part and a formation shape control part that enables the first leader UAV to control the translational maneuvering, the second leader UAV to control the rotational and scaling maneuvering, and all the follower UAVs to maintain the formation shape. Simulations and experiments on UAVs' formation maneuvering are conducted to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
ISSN:1063-6536
1558-0865
DOI:10.1109/TCST.2023.3240286