This article studies the leader–follower formation tracking problem of multiple quadrotors. In particular, the quadrotors are steered to track a reference trajectory while maintaining a desired configuration. The reference trajectory is partially available to a subset of quadrotors, and each quadrotor just interacts locally with its neighbors. A distributed control algorithm is proposed under a hierarchical framework. First, by introducing a distributed saturation control strategy, a command force is synthesized for the position to track the reference trajectory with a desired displacement. Second, a bounded applied force and a nonsingular command attitude are extracted from the synthesized command force based on a proper choice criterion of control parameters. Last but not the least, an applied torque is designed for the attitude to track the command one. In terms of Lyapunov theory, it is shown that the overall closed-loop error system is asymptotically stable. This indicates the accomplishment of the concerned leader–follower formation tracking control objective of multiple quadrotors. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed distributed control algorithm is verified through both simulations and experiments.

中文翻译：

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多个四旋翼飞机前导跟随编队跟踪的分布式控制算法：理论与实验

本文研究了多个四旋翼的前导-从动编队跟踪问题。特别地，操纵四旋翼以跟踪参考轨迹，同时保持期望的配置。参考轨迹部分可用于四旋翼飞行器的子集，并且每个四旋翼飞行器仅在局部与其邻居交互。在分层框架下提出了一种分布式控制算法。首先，通过引入分布式饱和控制策略，针对该位置合成指令力，以跟踪具有所需位移的参考轨迹。第二，基于适当的控制参数选择准则，从合成命令力中提取有界作用力和非奇异命令姿态。最后但是同样重要的，施加的扭矩被设计为用于跟踪命令一的姿态。根据李雅普诺夫理论，证明了整个闭环误差系统是渐近稳定的。这表明完成了有关多个四旋翼的前导-从机编队跟踪控制目标。最后，通过仿真和实验验证了所提出的分布式控制算法的有效性。