Coordinated Control of Multiple UAVs : Theory and Flight Experiment

Abstract

This paper proposes a nonlinear control law to realize a coordinated flight of multiple UAVs and evaluates its performance through flight experiments of small fixed-wing UAV platforms. Assuming all-to-all communication, a decentralized coordination control system is designed based on a virtual leader approach. The proposed control design uses a potential function defined on a phase distribution of multi agents. Two advantages of this coordination controller are; i) it can be applied to make different coordination configurations, ii) it is applicable to any number of UAVs, and so it can easily treat an event of addition/deletion of UAV units in a coordination team. The proposed coordination control law is proven to be locally asymptotically stable by using Lyapunov indirect method, and its large domain of attraction is observed in simulation. Furthermore, the controller is implemented onboard ONERA fixed-wing UAV platforms and tested with a mission scenario which includes four different coordination configurations.