Distributed formation control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles over time-varying graphs using population games

This paper presents a control technique based on distributed population dynamics under time-varying communication graphs for a multi-agent system structured in a leader-follower fashion. Here, the leader agent follows a particular trajectory and the follower agents should track it in a certain organized formation manner. The tracking of the leader can be performed in the position coordinates x, y, and z, and in the yaw angle φ. Additional features are performed with this method: each agent has only partial knowledge of the position of other agents and not necessarily all agents should communicate to the leader. Moreover, it is possible to integrate a new agent into the formation (or for an agent to leave the formation task) in a dynamical manner. In addition, the formation configuration can be changed along the time, and the distributed population-games-based controller achieves the new organization goal accommodating conveniently the information-sharing graph in function of the communication range capabilities of each UAV. Finally, several simulations are presented to illustrate different scenarios, e.g., formation with time-varying communication network, and time-varying formation.