Distributed Formation Control Algorithms for QUAVs Based on Aggregative Games

In this article, the formation problems of multiple quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (QUAVs) are studied. In contrast to existing results, the problems are investigated from the perspective of aggregative games (AGs). An interesting discovery is that the desired formation can be constituted by the Nash equilibrium of a quadratic AG. To realize the desired formation for QUAVs, we design two distributed game-based formation algorithms. With the developed algorithms, the QUAVs do not need to measure the (relative) positions and (relative) velocities of neighboring QUAVs, which differs from existing algorithms. By constructing suitable Lyapunov functions, we rigorously analyze the two formation algorithms. The first formation algorithm converges exponentially to the desired formation for the QUAVs without parameter uncertainties. The other algorithm converges asymptotically to the desired formation, even if the QUAVs contain uncertain parameters. Finally, we provide illustrative examples.