Distributed formation flight control of multi-UAV system with nonuniform time-delays and jointly connected topologies

This paper aims to investigate formation control problem of multi-UAV system with nonuniform time-delays and jointly-connected topologies. No explicit leader exists in the formation team, and therefore a consensus-based distributed formation control protocol which requires only the local neighbor-to-neighbor information between UAVs is proposed for the system. The stability analysis of the proposed formation control protocol is also performed. The research suggests that when the time-delay, communication topology and control protocol satisfy the stability condition, the formation control protocol will guide the multi-UAV system asymptotically converge to the desired velocity and shape the expected formation team, respectively. Numerical simulations verify the effectiveness of the formation control system.