Distributed optimal formation control of unmanned aerial vehicles: Theory and experiments

Dear Editor, This letter considers the problem of achieving optimal formation control in multiple vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Specifically, the objective is to derive the vehicles to the desired formation shape while minimizing the total cost function. Leveraging the backstepping design, a distributed control strategy is proposed that incorporates a dynamic system for generating a reference trajectory and a trajectory tracking controller for each vehicle. It is proved that each vehicle can be guided to form a desired configuration centered around the optimal solution of the global cost function while simultaneously avoiding singularities in the desired attitude extraction. The efficacy of the developed algorithm is validated through experiments with four Crazyflie 2.1 UAVs.