Formation Control for UAVs Considering Safety Constraints Based on Control Barrier Functions with Switched...

Area of Science:

• Robotics and Control Systems
• Distributed Systems
• Networked Autonomous Systems

Background:

• Multi-UAV systems require robust formation control for complex missions.
• Dynamic environments with switched trajectories and time-varying communication topologies pose significant challenges.
• Ensuring inter-agent safety and collision avoidance is critical during coordinated maneuvers.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a distributed formation control protocol for multi-UAV systems.
• To address challenges posed by switched trajectories and dynamic communication topologies.
• To guarantee accurate formation tracking and collision avoidance.

Main Methods:

• A distributed formation control protocol is proposed.
• Stability analysis using multiple Lyapunov functions proves system stability under dual-switching scenarios.
• Control Barrier Functions (CBFs) and a quadratic programming (QP)-based optimization framework are employed for collision avoidance.

Main Results:

• Sufficient and necessary conditions for accurate formation tracking are derived.
• The protocol effectively coordinates formation tracking and topology switching.
• Real-time collision avoidance is achieved during trajectory and topology transitions.

Conclusions:

• The proposed approach enables reliable formation control for multi-UAV systems in dynamic environments.
• It offers a viable solution for UAV collaboration with uncertain and switching conditions.
• The integration of CBFs and QP-based optimization ensures inter-agent safety.