Experimental demonstration of coordinated control for multi-vehicle teams

Abstract

This paper discusses several unique hardware testbeds that were developed to evaluate coordination and control algorithms for missions with multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The first testbed uses eight rovers and two blimps operated indoors to emulate a heterogeneous fleet of aircraft. The second testbed has eight UAVs flown autonomously with commercial autopilots, which are also used to perform sophisticated hardware-in-the-loop simulations. Future missions will require that teams of UAVs cooperate in dynamic and uncertain environments, and these testbeds can be used to compare various control approaches. A hierarchical configuration of task assignment, trajectory design, and low-level waypoint following uses a receding horizon framework to control the team of vehicles. The resulting demonstrations of the high-level planning algorithms on scaled vehicles operating in uncertain environments represent key steps towards transitioning them to future UAV missions.