Distributed Cooperative Formation and Obstacle Avoidance for Multiple UAVs by Consensus and Control Barrier Functions

This paper addresses the challenge of multi-UAV formation control and obstacle avoidance in unknown environments. A distributed control framework is proposed, integrating three behaviors: formation maintenance, obstacle avoidance, and inter-agent collision avoidance. First, a formation controller is designed based on consensus and local neighboring information. Second, a safety-guaranteed obstacle avoidance strategy is designed via control barrier functions(CBFs), ensuring collision-free navigation under dynamic constraints. Then, a collision avoidance controller between UAVs is designed according to the improved Hooke's damping law. Ultimately, the control layers are coupled. Simulation results show that the proposed method can achieve formation gathering, obstacle avoidance, and formation reconfigration in complicated scenarios, verifying the effectiveness and efficiency of the algorithm.