On the Design of Outdoor Leader-Follower UAV-Formation Controllers From a Practical Point of View

Abstract

This work presents a strategy to autonomously guide two commercial quadrotors when navigating as a leader-follower formation in outdoor environments. The objective is to design controllers taking into account assumptions and simplifications in the UAV model. This way, the main contribution of this paper is to enhance how the point of view of real experiments helps the design of controllers for affordable UAVs, commonly guided by high-level commands. The application here reported is implemented in a ground station that allows manual or automatic control of the leader UAV in formation with a follower vehicle, this last one always automatically controlled. Experimental results in real outdoor scenarios subject to unpredicted disturbances validate the proposal.