Cross-Dimensional Distributed Control for Heterogeneous UAV-UGV Systems With Nonzero Leader Input

This study addresses the issue of time-varying output formation (TVOF) tracking in cross-dimensional heterogeneous unmanned aerial vehicle and unmanned ground vehicle (UAV-UGV) systems under the influence of nonzero leader inputs, parameter uncertainties, and external disturbances. Initially, we devise fully distributed adaptive observers to estimate the leader's information for both IFs (informed followers) and UFs (uninformed followers). Subsequently, we introduce an observer-based distributed control strategy enhanced with adaptive updating to manage cross-dimensional TVOF challenges. The strategy is characterized by three key features: it accommodates non-autonomous leader dynamics with non-zero inputs; it mitigates the negative effects of uncertainties and disturbances without requiring their upper bounds or global network topology information; and it adapts TVOF to cross-dimensional contexts via a novel output formation regulation matrix. Additionally, we present an algorithm to determine the necessary parameters for the control strategy. We employ Lyapunov methods to prove the asymptotic stability of the distributed observers and the composite cross-dimensional TVOF tracking system. The efficacy of the proposed approach is validated through application to heterogeneous UAV-UGV systems.