Distributed Formation-Containment Control of Quadrotors Based on Differential Flatness

This article solves the formation-containment problem of quadrotor swarms by using differential flatness. By exploiting the differential flatness property of quadrotor swarms, the formation-containment control objective is embedded in the differential flatness mapping. A differential flatness-based distributed formation-containment controller is designed. Using the differential flatness mapping, feedforward is constructed to achieve tracking of high-order trajectories. To address the underactuation issue, a distributed feedback control based on acceleration projection is constructed to achieve the desired acceleration. Stability of the formation-containment error dynamics is analyzed using Lyapunov theory, and the attraction domain is provided. Effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by real-world vision-based formation-containment experiments.