Formation Flight

Trajectory Tracking and Formation Control

A control strategy was developed to solve the trajectory tracking and flight formation problem, in the horizontal plane, of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) kind quadrotor, by means of a leader-follower scheme. Time scale separation of the translational and rotational quadrotor dynamics is used to achieve trajectory tracking. A sliding mode controller is proposed for the translational dynamic and provides the desired orientation for the UAV, which is controlled by a linear PD control. Finally, from the formation error dynamics, a sliding mode control is used by the follower to preserve the formation with respect to a leader. An experimental platform was developed for this work consisting of two costume made quadrotors, a ground station running ROS and an Optitrack motion capture system. Experimental results, using a hand-held leader and a follower in formation, are shown to evaluate the proposed control law.