Theory and Experiment on Adaptive Group Time-Varying Formation Tracking Control for Unmanned Swarm Systems via Networked Game

In this article, adaptive group time-varying formation tracking (TVFT) control problems for unmanned swarm systems are investigated based on networked distributed game. To describe the competition which commonly exists between different subgroups, a novel adaptive group TVFT control framework is designed. Specifically, the group-leaders are required to converge to the Nash equilibrium (NE) of intergroup game, meanwhile the followers within each group will simultaneously realize TVFT relative to their group-leader. In addition, benefit from the adaptive mechanism, the dependence of controller parameters on system scale, interaction topology, and cost function is eliminated. By constructing Lyapunov function with both NE seeking error and TVFT error, the stability of the coupled closed-loop swarm system is proved. An experiment platform with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) is constructed, then both simulation and experiment results are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller.