Time-varying formation control for unmanned aerial vehicles with switching interaction topologies

Time-varying formation control problems for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm systems with switching interaction topologies are studied. Necessary and sufficient conditions for UAV swarm systems with switching interaction topologies to achieve predefined time-varying formations are proposed. Based on the common Lyapunov functional approach and algebraic Riccati equation technique, an approach to design the formation protocol is presented. An explicit expression of the formation reference function is derived to describe the macroscopic movement of the whole UAV formation. A quadrotor formation platform consisting of four quadrotors is introduced. Outdoor experiments are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.