Decentralized Control of a Formation Involving a Miniature Helicopter and a Team of Ground Robots Based on Artificial Vision

Abstract

This work addresses a coordinate control scheme for a helicopter and a formation of ground robots, based on artificial vision. First, a control scheme previously proposed is implemented to guide a formation of three ground mobile robots while they track a desired trajectory. In the sequel, a nonlinear controller based on the inverse dynamics of the aerial vehicle, focusing on its under actuated character, is used to guide its navigation. The mission to be accomplished by the helicopter consists in tracking the centroid of the ground formation. An important aspect to be emphasized is that the two controllers adopted operate totally independently, thus characterizing a decentralized control scheme. An artificial vision system onboard the rotorcraft is used to capture the positions of the ground vehicles, which are used to define the 3D-path to be followed by the helicopter. Simulation results validating the proposed system are presented and discussed.