Finite‐time fully distributed formation reconfiguration control for UAV helicopters

Abstract

Summary This paper studies finite‐time fully distributed formation and reconfiguration control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicle helicopter with disturbances and uncertainty. Based on adaptive and terminal sliding‐mode control techniques, a disturbance observer‐based fully distributed control strategy is proposed, which is independent of least nonzero eigenvalue of Laplacian matrix and achieves practical finite‐time formation tracking for a moving leader without any additional condition. The proposed method is proved superior to the existing method in converging time. The finite‐time stability of the closed‐loop error is proved by the Lyapunov theory. Considering formation configuration changing as a result of a task change, a modified finite‐time fully distributed controller including potential energy function gradient terms with an adaptive law is proposed. The novelty of the reconfiguration controller is that an adaptive law is firstly integrated in the gradient items, then the asymptotical stability is extended to practical finite‐time stability. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the developed algorithm.