Abstract:

The distributed leadless consensus problem for multiple quadrotor systems under fixed and switching topologies is investigated. The objective is to design protocols achieving consensus for networked quadrotors’ positions and attitudes. Because the model of a quadrotor is a strong high-order nonlinear coupling system, the approach of feedback linearization is employed to transform the model into a group of four linear subsystems among which there is no coupling. Then, a consensus algorithm is proposed which consists of a local feedback controller and interactions from the finite neighbors under fixed undirected topologies. Especially, the problem of choosing the parameters in the consensus algorithm is also addressed, enlightened by the results of the robust control theory. Furthermore, it is proved that the proposed algorithm also guarantees the consensus under undirected switching topologies. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.