Dynamic event-triggered cooperative formation control for UAVs subject to time-varying disturbances

• Published in: IET control theory & applications Vol. 14; no. 17; pp. 2514 - 2525
• Main Authors: Wei, Lili, Chen, Mou, Li, Tao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: The Institution of Engineering and Technology 26.11.2020
• Subjects: appropriate disturbance observers; asymptotic stability; autonomous aerial vehicles; closed loop systems; control system synthesis; controller gains; decentralised control; desired linear matrix inequality; distributed control; distributed event‐triggered control scheme; dynamic event‐triggered cooperative formation control problem; dynamic event‐triggered mechanism; leader UAV; leader–follower framework; linear matrix inequalities; Lyapunov methods; mobile robots; multiple frequency waves; multi‐robot systems; observers; position control; Research Article; second‐order kinematical model; time‐varying disturbances; time‐varying systems; triggering parameters; triggering threshold; UAV formation; unknown external disturbances; unmanned aerial vehicles subject; time-varying systems; UAV formation; second-order kinematical model; time-varying disturbances; distributed event-triggered control scheme; multi-robot systems; decentralised control; mobile robots; asymptotic stability; leader–follower framework; dynamic event-triggered cooperative formation control problem; unknown external disturbances; linear matrix inequalities; unmanned aerial vehicles subject; position control; triggering parameters; dynamic event-triggered mechanism; leader UAV; distributed control; control system synthesis; closed loop systems; appropriate disturbance observers; autonomous aerial vehicles; multiple frequency waves; controller gains; triggering threshold; desired linear matrix inequality; observers; Lyapunov methods
• ISSN: 1751-8644; 1751-8652
• DOI: 10.1049/iet-cta.2020.0342

The dynamic event-triggered cooperative formation control problem for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) subject to time-varying disturbances is studied. A single UAV is described by a second-order kinematical model and the desired formation is constructed by utilising the leader–follower framework, in which the leader UAV provides the desired trajectory for each follower. Unknown external disturbances are assumed to be composed of multiple frequency waves and appropriate disturbance observers are designed. A dynamic event-triggered mechanism is proposed with its triggering threshold being dynamically adjustable rather than a fixed constant, which can reduce data transmissions more effectively and meanwhile avoid the Zeno behaviour. Then a distributed event-triggered control scheme is developed for the UAV formation and two sufficient conditions on asymptotical stability of the resulting closed loop system are derived. Furthermore, controller gains, observer gains, and triggering parameters can be jointly obtained by solving the desired linear matrix inequality (LMI). Finally, a simulated example is given to illustrate the obtained results.