Flight formation of multiple mini rotorcraft based on nested saturations

Abstract

This paper addresses the coordination and trajectory tracking control design for a multiple mini rotorcraft system. The dynamic model of the mini rotorcraft is presented using the Newton-Euler formalism. Our approach is based on a leader/follower structure of multiple robot systems. A nonlinear controller based on nested saturations and a multi-agent consensus control are combined to obtain a flight formation control for a multiple mini rotorcraft system. The centroid of the coordinated control subsystem is used for trajectory tracking purposes. The analytic results are supported by simulation tests.