Finite‐time fully distributed formation reconfiguration control for UAV helicopters

Abstract

Summary This paper studies finite‐time fully distributed formation and reconfiguration control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicle helicopter with disturbances and uncertainty. Based on adaptive and terminal sliding‐mode control techniques, a disturbance observer‐based fully distributed control strategy is proposed, which is independent of least nonzero eigenvalue of Laplacian matrix and achieves practical finite‐time formation tracking for a moving leader without any additional condition. The proposed method is proved superior to the existing method in converging time. The finite‐time stability of the closed‐loop error is proved by the Lyapunov theory. Considering formation configuration changing as a result of a task change, a modified finite‐time fully distributed controller including potential energy function gradient terms with an adaptive law is proposed. The novelty of the reconfiguration controller is that an adaptive law is firstly integrated in the gradient items, then the asymptotical stability is extended to practical finite‐time stability. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the developed algorithm.

Robust trajectory tracking control for unmanned tail‐sitters in aggressive flight mode transitions

“…The coordinate system does not require to be switched to describe the vehicle dynamics, and the controller structures do not need to be changed in the flight mode transitions. (1) and (2) is controlled by the controller designed in the third section, then, for any given initial bounded conditions and given positive constants i (i = r, t), there exist positive constants * r , * t , and T * i , such that if r ≥ * r ( = 1, 2, 3) and t ≥ * t , then the tracking error e i (t) is bounded and satisfies…”

“…Recently, flight control problems of unmanned aerial vehicles have received an increasing interest in the control and robotic circles because of their various applications, such as disaster rescue, unmanned inspection, and road traffic supervision . The popular unmanned aircraft can be classified into fixed‐wing aircraft and rotary‐wing aircraft with differences on flexibility, payload, endurance, and flight speed .…”

“…nonlinear system, robust control, tail-sitter aerial vehicle, trajectory tracking control Recently, flight control problems of unmanned aerial vehicles have received an increasing interest in the control and robotic circles because of their various applications, such as disaster rescue, unmanned inspection, and road traffic supervision. [1][2][3][4][5] The popular unmanned aircraft can be classified into fixed-wing aircraft and rotary-wing aircraft with differences on flexibility, payload, endurance, and flight speed. 6-9 Nowadays, a new type of unmanned aerial vehicles, ie, the tail-sitters, has gained much attention from the academic and industry.…”

Distributed finite‐time formation control for multiple quadrotors via local communications

“…Formation control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has attracted considerable research interest in recent years . It has been proven to be advantageous in carrying out a variety of tasks such as surveillance, area exploration, target search, accident rescue tasks and many other applications .…”

“…Formation control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has attracted considerable research interest in recent years. [1][2][3][4][5] It has been proven to be advantageous in carrying out a variety of tasks such as surveillance, area exploration, target search, accident rescue tasks and many other applications. [6][7][8] Especially, quadrotors become vastly used in most recent research works due to their capability of vertical take-off and landing.…”