Practical consensus-based formation control for quadrotor systems

This paper presents a practical discrete-time consensus-based output-feedback formation control algorithm for quadrotors. A dynamic model is derived by approximating the behaviour of real on-board controllers via system identification, before assuming three decoupled systems to model the longitudinal, lateral and yaw motion. Consensus controllers are designed for all subsystems using discrete-time algebraic Riccati equations and parameter uncertainty theorems with observers suggested for systems without full state information. The performance of the proposed control approach is evaluated through a series of simulation studies and its benefits are shown with real experimental results.