Robust Formation Control for Cooperative Underactuated Quadrotors via Reinforcement Learning

In this article, the model-free robust formation control problem is addressed for cooperative underactuated quadrotors involving unknown nonlinear dynamics and disturbances. Based on the hierarchical control scheme and the reinforcement learning theory, a robust controller is proposed without knowledge of each quadrotor dynamics, consisting of a distributed observer to estimate the position state of the leader, a position controller to achieve the desired formation, and an attitude controller to control the rotational motion. Simulation results on the multiquadrotor system confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model-free robust formation control method.