Robust Formation Control For Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This book is based on the authors’ recent research results on formation control problems, including time-varying formation, communication delays, fault-tolerant formation for multiple UAV systems with highly nonlinear and coupled, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances. Differentiating from existing works, this book presents a robust optimal formation approach to designing distributed cooperative control laws for a group of UAVs, based on the linear quadratic regulator control method and the robust compensation theory. The proposed control method is composed of two parts: the nominal part to achieve desired tracking performance and the robust compensation part to restrain the influence of highly nonlinear and strongly coupled parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances on the global closed-loop control system. Furthermore, this book gives proof of their robust properties. The influence of communication delays and actuator fault tolerance can be restrained by the proposed robust formation control protocol, and the formation tracking errors can converge into a neighborhood of the origin bounded by a given constant in a finite time. Moreover, the book provides details about the practical application of the proposed method to design formation control systems for multiple quadrotors and tail-sitters. Additional features include a robust control method that is proposed to address the formation control problem for UAVs and theoretical and experimental research for the cooperative flight of the quadrotor UAV group and the tail-sitter UAV group. Robust Formation Control for Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is suitable for graduate students, researchers, and engineers in the system and control community, especially those engaged in the areas of robust control, UAV swarming, and multi-agent systems.

"This book is based on the authors' recent research results on formation control problems, including time-varying formation, communication delays, fault-tolerant formation for multiple UAV systems with highly nonlinear and coupled, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances. Differentiating from existing works, this book presents a robust optimal formation approach to designing distributed cooperative control laws for a group of UAVs, based on the linear quadratic regulator control method and the robust compensation theory. The proposed control method is composed of two parts: the nominal part to achieve desired tracking performance and the robust compensation part to restrain the influence of highly nonlinear and strongly coupled, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances on the global closed-loop control system. Furthermore, this book gives proof of their robust properties. The influence of communication delays and actuator fault tolerance can be restrained by the proposed robust formation control protocol, and the formation tracking errors can converge into a neighborhood of the origin bounded by a given constant in a finite time. Moreover, the book provides details about the practical application of the proposed method to design formation control systems for multiple quadrotors and tail-sitters. Additional features include a robust control method that is proposed to address the formation control problem for UAVs and theoretical and experimental research for the cooperative flight of the quadrotor UAV group and the tail-sitter UAV group. Robust Formation Control for Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles is suitable for graduate students, researchers, and engineers in the system and control community, especially those engaged in the areas of robust control, UAV swarming, and multi-agent systems."--

In the last decade the development and control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has attracted a lot of interest. Both researchers and companies have a growing interest in improving this type of vehicle given their many civilian and military applications. This book presents the state of the art in the area of UAV Flight Formation. The coordination and robust consensus approaches are presented in detail as well as formation flight control strategies which are validated in experimental platforms. It aims at helping students and academics alike to better understand what coordination and flight formation control can make possible. Several novel methods are presented: - controllability and observability of multi-agent systems; - robust consensus; - flight formation control; - stability of formations over noisy networks; which generate solutions of guaranteed performance for UAV Flight Formation. Contents 1. Introduction, J.A. Guerrero. 2. Theoretical Preliminaries, J.A. Guerrero. 3. Multiagent Coordination Strategies, J.A. Guerrero, R. Lozano, M.W. Spong, N. Chopra. 4. Robust Control Design for Multiagent Systems with Parametric Uncertainty, J.A. Guerrero, G. Romero. 5. On Adaptive and Robust Controlled Synchronization of Networked Robotic Systems on Strongly Connected Graphs, Y.-C. Liu, N. Chopra. 6. Modeling and Control of Mini UAV, G. Flores Colunga, J.A. Guerrero, J. Escareño, R. Lozano. 7. Flight Formation Control Strategies for Mini UAVs, J.A. Guerrero. 8. Formation Based on Potential Functions, L. García, A. Dzul. 9. Quadrotor Vision-Based Control, J.E. Gomez-Balderas, J.A. Guerrero, S. SALAZAR, R. Lozano, P. Castillo. 10. Toward Vision-Based Coordination of Quadrotor Platoons, L.R. García Carrillo, J.A. Guerrero, R. Lozano. 11. Optimal Guidance for Rotorcraft Platoon Formation Flying in Wind Fields, J.A. Guerrero, Y. Bestaoui, R. Lozano. 12. Impact of Wireless Medium Access Protocol on the Quadrotor Formation Control, J.A. Guerrero, Y. Challal, P. Castillo. 13. MAC Protocol for Wireless Communications, A. Mendez, M. Panduro, O. Elizarraras, D. Covarrubias. 14. Optimization of a Scannable Pattern for Bidimensional Antenna Arrays to Provide Maximum Performance, A. Reyna, M.A. Panduro, A. Mendez.

Robot Manipulator Control offers a complete survey of control systems for serial-link robot arms and acknowledges how robotic device performance hinges upon a well-developed control system. Containing over 750 essential equations, this thoroughly up-to-date Second Edition, the book explicates theoretical and mathematical requisites for controls design and summarizes current techniques in computer simulation and implementation of controllers. It also addresses procedures and issues in computed-torque, robust, adaptive, neural network, and force control. New chapters relay practical information on commercial robot manipulators and devices and cutting-edge methods in neural network control.

This text explores formation control of vehicle systems and introduces three representative systems: space systems, aerial systems and robotic systems Formation Control of Multiple Autonomous Vehicle Systems offers a review of the core concepts of dynamics and control and examines the dynamics and control aspects of formation control in order to study a wide spectrum of dynamic vehicle systems such as spacecraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and robots. The text puts the focus on formation control that enables and stabilizes formation configuration, as well as formation reconfiguration of these vehicle systems. The authors develop a uniform paradigm of describing vehicle systems’ dynamic behaviour that addresses both individual vehicle’s motion and overall group’s movement, as well as interactions between vehicles. The authors explain how the design of proper control techniques regulate the formation motion of these vehicles and the development of a system level decision-making strategy that increases the level of autonomy for the entire group of vehicles to carry out their missions. The text is filled with illustrative case studies in the domains of space, aerial and robotics. • Contains uniform coverage of "formation" dynamic systems development • Presents representative case studies in selected applications in the space, aerial and robotic systems domains • Introduces an experimental platform of using laboratory three-degree-of-freedom helicopters with step-by-step instructions as an example • Provides open source example models and simulation codes • Includes notes and further readings that offer details on relevant research topics, recent progress and further developments in the field Written for researchers and academics in robotics and unmanned systems looking at motion synchronization and formation problems, Formation Control of Multiple Autonomous Vehicle Systems is a vital resource that explores the motion synchronization and formation control of vehicle systems as represented by three representative systems: space systems, aerial systems and robotic systems.

Assuming only neighbor-neighbor interaction among vehicles, this monograph develops distributed consensus strategies that ensure that the information states of all vehicles in a network converge to a common value. Readers learn to deal with groups of autonomous vehicles in aerial, terrestrial, and submarine environments. Plus, they get the tools needed to overcome impaired communication by using constantly updated neighbor-neighbor interchange.

This book presents a concise introduction to the latest advances in robust cooperative control design for multi-agent systems with input delay and external disturbances, especially from a prediction and observation perspective. The volume covers a wide range of applications, such as the trajectory tracking of quadrotors, formation flying of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and fixed-time formation of ground vehicles. Robust cooperative control means that multi-agent systems are able to achieve specified control tasks while remaining robust in the face of both parametric and nonparametric model uncertainties. In addition, the authors cover a wide range of key issues in cooperative control, such as communication and input delays, parametric model uncertainties and external disturbances. Moving beyond the scope of existing works, a systematic prediction and observation approach to designing robust cooperative control laws is presented. About the Authors Chunyan Wang is an Associate Professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Beijing Institute of Technology, China. Zongyu Zuo is a full Professor with the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, China. Jianan Wang is an Associate Professor in the School of Aerospace Engineering at Beijing Institute of Technology, China. Zhengtao Ding is a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at University of Manchester, U.K.

This monograph introduces recent developments in formation control of distributed-agent systems. Eschewing the traditional concern with the dynamic characteristics of individual agents, the book proposes a treatment that studies the formation control problem in terms of interactions among agents including factors such as sensing topology, communication and actuation topologies, and computations. Keeping pace with recent technological advancements in control, communications, sensing and computation that have begun to bring the applications of distributed-systems theory out of the industrial sphere and into that of day-to-day life, this monograph provides distributed control algorithms for a group of agents that may behave together. Unlike traditional control laws that usually require measurements with respect to a global coordinate frame and communications between a centralized operation center and agents, this book provides control laws that require only relative measurements and communications between agents without interaction with a centralized operator. Since the control algorithms presented in this book do not require any global sensing and any information exchanges with a centralized operation center, they can be realized in a fully distributed way, which significantly reduces the operation and implementation costs of a group of agents. Formation Control will give both students and researchers interested in pursuing this field a good grounding on which to base their work.