Finite- and fixed-time privacy-preserving formation control for multiple quadrotor systems with input delay and...

This paper investigates the finite- and fixed-time privacy-preserving formation control problem for multiple quadrotors with input delay and connectivity maintenance. A lightweight confidential interaction protocol based on group key agreement is first proposed to ensure secure communication among quadrotors under limited computational resources. To address the input delay, an extended Artstein's transformation is introduced to convert the system into a delay-free form, and by integrating potential functions with finite-/fixed-time control techniques, novel formation control algorithms are developed to resolve the delay issue while preserving the initial interaction topology. Leveraging Lyapunov stability theory and bi-limit homogeneous system theory, rigorous theoretical analysis is conducted to derive sufficient conditions for finite- and fixed-time formability of the quadrotor formation system. The proposed framework systematically resolves the coupling challenges among privacy protection, time-delay compensation, and topology preservation. Numerical simulations and flight experiments are carried out to illustrate the effectiveness of the theoretical results.