Decentralized Controller Design for Formation Flight with UAV Failure Detection Logic

Abstract

This paper proposes a decentralized formation controller based on the consensus protocol and an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle(UAV) failure detection logic for formation flight. Feedback linearisation method is used to design controller to maintain a specified time-varying geometric configuration of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles. The information flow topologies between the vehicles can be defined by a Graph Laplacian matrix. An failure detection logic for formation flight is proposed, and the sudden disruption among the formation interconnections can be regulated by reforming the Graph Laplacian matrix. Stability analysis of the proposed formation controller is carried out. Numerical simulation is performed to verify the performance of the proposed controller under the dynamic formation geometry considering the failure of UAVs.