Distributed Bearing-Only Formation Maneuvering Control for Quadrotors without Global Reference Frame
Shaoshi Li, Yuwei Zhang, Shaoping Wang, Rui Mu, Xingjian Wang
AI summary
Problem
Existing bearing-only formation control methods rely on relative bearings measured in a common global reference frame, which is impractical in distributed, GNSS-denied environments. They also lack guaranteed estimation convergence times and struggle with time-varying leader velocities.
Approach
The authors design a prescribed-time quaternion-based orientation estimator that allows each follower to align with the leader's local frame, paired with a bearing-only control law that uses a finite-time differentiator to bypass the need for bearing rate data.
Key results
- Prescribed-time quaternion-based orientation estimator for leader alignment without global frame knowledge
- Bearing-only formation control law requiring only local bearing measurements and no bearing rate data
- Rigorous convergence proof for position and velocity tracking under time-varying velocities and bounded disturbances
- Validation through comparative simulations and multi-quadrotor real-world experiments
Why it matters
Enables robust, low-cost quadrotor swarm coordination in GNSS-denied environments where global positioning or high-end sensors are unavailable.
Abstract
Most existing bearing-only formation control meth- ods required that the relative bearings among neighboring agents are measured under a well-known global reference frame for each individual. To remove such constraint, this paper novelly introduces a distributed formation control scheme for quadrotors with only bearing measurement in each vehicle’s local reference frame. To this end, firstly, a prescribed-time quaternion-based orientation estimator is proposed for each follower to estimate the leader’s orientation without knowledge of the global ref- erence frame. Secondly, a bearing-only formation control law is developed to achieve desired maneuvering formation using relative bearings under local reference frame, wherein a finite- time differentiator is incorporated to remove the need of bearing rate. The convergence is rigorously proven through mathematical derivations. Both comparative simulations and real-world exper- iments are conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.