Adaptive reset control for group-bipartite formation of multi-UAVs subject to transmission delays

Abstract

Existing multi-UAV formation control methods face challenges in achieving stable and fast tracking under transmission delays and inaccessible information, particularly when addressing the design of various formation configurations and optimizing transient performance. To address these challenges, this paper proposes an adaptive reset control technique that integrates virtual leaders and state observers to achieve fast and accurate time-varying group-bipartite formation tracking in multi-UAV systems. Firstly, a state observer is designed to accurately estimate the position and velocity of each UAV. Then, a distributed adaptive group-bipartite time-varying formation tracking controller with a reset component is introduced. This controller enables each UAV to adjust its position and velocity according to neighboring UAVs, thus achieving the desired group-bipartite formation. The inclusion of reset component significantly enhances the transient performance of formation. Moreover, the sufficient conditions were derived for group-bipartite formation control by employing a novel Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional, which constructed with the matrix-valued polynomial, the Bessel-Legendre inequality, and the reciprocally convex matrix inequality. Finally, the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed control strategy are demonstrated through comprehensive simulations involving multiple fixed-wing UAVs.