Coordination and navigation of heterogeneous MAV–UGV formations localized by a ‘hawk-eye’-like approach under a model predictive control scheme

Abstract

The final publication is available at http://ijr.sagepub.com/content/33/10/1393 Copyright noticeThe copyright to the Contribution identified above is transferred to SAGE Publications. The copyright transfer covers the sole right to print, publish, distribute and sell throughout the world the said Contribution and parts thereof, including all revisions or versions and future editions thereof and in any medium, such as in its electronic form (offline, online), as well as to translate, print, publish, distribute and sell the Contribution in any foreign languages and throughout the world.Coordination and navigation of heterogeneous MAV-UGV formations localized by a "hawk-eye" like approach under a model predictive control scheme AbstractAn approach for coordination and control of 3D heterogeneous formations of unmanned aerial and ground vehicles under hawk-eye like relative localization is presented in this paper. The core of the method lies in the use of visual top-view feedback from flying robots for the stabilization of the entire group in a leader-follower formation. We formulate a novel Model Predictive Control (MPC) based methodology for guiding the formation. The method is employed to solve the trajectory planning and control of a virtual leader into a desired target region. In addition, the method is used for keeping the following vehicles in the desired shape of the group. The approach is designed to ensure direct visibility between aerial and ground vehicles, which is crucial for the formation stabilization using the hawk-eye like approach. The presented system is verified in numerous experiments inspired by search and rescue applications, where the formation acts as a searching phalanx. In addition, stability and convergence analyses are provided to explicitly determine the limitations of the method in real-world applications.

Cooperative Path Following of Multiple Multirotors Over Time-Varying Networks

“…Relevant work includes spacecraft formation flying [1]- [3], UAV control [4], [5], coordinated control of land robots [6]- [8], and control of multiple autonomous underwater vehicles [9], [10]. Research on cooperative flight of multirotor teams is particularly extensive (see [2], [3], [11]- [16], and references therein). In this context, the literature is mainly divided into two categories: centralized and decentralized cooperative control.…”

System for deployment of groups of unmanned micro aerial vehicles in GPS-denied environments using onboard visual relative localization

“…The proposed formation control mechanism is suited for the real-world deployment of autonomous robots relying on the onboard visual relative localization, which brings additional movement constraints to the MAV team. The method is based on a leader-follower technique, where the team of robots is stabilized by sharing knowledge of the leader's position within the formation (see the original leader-follower approach [41] designed for a group of ground robots (UGVs) and the extension of the leader-follower approach for heterogenous MAVs-UGVs teams in [42], [43] for details). The method presented in this section is an extension of our work introduced in conference paper [44], where only simulation results were presented and where the requirements on the onboard relative localization necessary for the HW experiments, which is the main contribution of this paper, were not included.…”

Emergent Behaviors in the Internet of Things: The Ultimate Ultra-Large-Scale System

“…The work by Saska et al [12] used a specificallyprogrammed hawk-eyed supervising element that controlled and corrected the position of another set of autonomous vehicles. This central orchestrator is aware of the entire system and is responsible of maintaining the formation when faced with obstacles or failures.…”