Distributed Formation Control of Quadrotors under Limited Sensor Field of View

Abstract

This work tackles the problem of quadrotor formation control, using exclusively on-board resources. Local inter-robot localization systems are typically characterized by limited sensing capabilities, either in range or in the field of view. Most of the existing literature on the subject uses inter-robot communication to obtain the unavailable information, but problems such as communication delays and packet loss can seriously compromise the system stability, especially when the system shows fast dynamics such as that of quadrotors. This work focuses on the sensor field of view limitation: it proposes a formation control algorithm that extends the existing methods to allow each quadrotor to control the occupied area of its sensor field of view, while moving to the right place in the formation. This decreases the situations when necessary inter-robot information is unavailable through local sensing, thus reducing the communication requirements. The system is proven to be stable when this algorithm is applied. Results, both using simulated and real quadrotors, show the correct behavior of the algorithm without the use of communications, even when each robot can only sense a subset of the robots in the group.