Consensus Approach Based Cooperative Guidance of a Multi-quadrotors System

We present in this paper a cooperative time-varying formation control of a networked multi-quadrotors system. We used consensus based approach to develop a cooperative guidance law based on the quadrotor linearized translational dynamics, while we used Sliding Mode Control SMC to stabilize the rotational dynamics. We opted for a virtual structure approach with a real leader and we used a dynamic version of Elliptical Fourier Descriptors EFDs to model the time-varying geometric configuration into a 3D planar curve that may be subjected to free transformation (scaling, rotation). The use of EFDs offers more flexibility and smoothness on the choice of the desired formation shape. The proposed controller was implemented in distributed way using two types of communication topologies (undirected and directed graph). The simulation results showed the feasibility and the effectiveness of the proposed controller and the stability of the whole system, furthermore, the use of undirected communication topology revealed fast convergence of the multi-quadrotor system to the desired formation shape compared to the directed topology.