A Decentralized Low-Chattering Sliding Mode Formation Flight Controller for a Swarm of UAVs

Area of Science:

• Robotics
• Control Systems
• Aerospace Engineering

Background:

• Swarm robotics requires sophisticated control for coordinated flight.
• Maintaining dynamic formations is challenging for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).
• Decentralized control offers scalability and robustness for multi-agent systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a nonlinear robust formation flight controller for UAV swarms.
• To enable UAVs to achieve and maintain formations with time-varying shapes.
• To ensure robust performance and smooth control signals in decentralized architectures.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a virtual leader approach for formation control.
• Implemented a decentralized control architecture where each UAV uses local information.
• Combined sliding mode control with a low-pass filter to mitigate chattering.
• Incorporated a synchronization control objective to balance formation and absolute positioning.

Main Results:

• The proposed controller effectively achieves and maintains time-varying formations.
• The decentralized architecture allows for local control using neighbor and virtual leader data.
• The sliding mode controller and low-pass filter combination reduced control signal chattering.
• Simulation results validated the effectiveness of the proposed decentralized controller.

Conclusions:

• The developed controller provides a robust and effective solution for UAV swarm formation flight.
• The decentralized approach enhances the adaptability and resilience of UAV formations.
• The controller successfully manages trade-offs between formation shape and individual UAV positioning.