Time-varying formation control for unmanned aerial vehicles with switching interaction topologies

Time-varying formation control problems for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm systems with switching interaction topologies are studied using a consensus based approach. Necessary and sufficient conditions for UAV swarm systems with switching interaction topologies to achieve predefined time-varying formations are proposed. An approach to design the formation protocol is given. A quadrotor formation platform including four quadrotors is introduced. Theoretical results are validated by outdoor time-varying formation experiments.