An Adaptive Formation Control Architecture for A Team of Quadrotors with Performance and Safety Constraints

In this work, we propose a novel adaptive formation control architecture for a group of quadrotor systems, under line-of-sight (LOS) distance and relative distance constraints, where the constraint requirements can be both asymmetric and time-varying in nature. Universal barrier functions are adopted in the controller design and analysis, which is a generic framework that can address system with different types of constraints in a unified controller architecture. Furthermore, each quadrotor’s mass is unknown, and the system dynamics are subjected to time-varying external disturbance. Through rigorous analysis, an exponential convergence rate can be guaranteed on the distance tracking errors, while the constraints are satisfied during the operation. A simulation example further demonstrates the efficacy of the proposed control framework.