This paper presents the main experimental results obtained with a passivity-based formation control scheme for small teams of miniature quadrotor drones and mixed mobile robot-drone. A formation includes a leader and a number of followers. Guidance, navigation and control systems are needed, onboard the vehicles, to maintain the geometry of the formation. The followers try to maintain constant relative distances from neighboring vehicles, while the leader is responsible for navigation and trajectory tracking. In practice, one may think of a manned aircraft acting as the leader vehicle, and a number of unmanned aircraft acting as wingmen, trying to maintain some geometry with respect to the leader, such as a V or an in-line shape. Applications for such squadrons include coverage or surveillance of an area using onboard sensors, transport of a payload, and efficiently surveying unknown grounds to determine if an area is free from hidden mines or other devices. The experimental results presented in this paper illustrate the effectiveness of a passivity-based decentralized formation control scheme, in terms of (1) cohesive group motion for both homogeneous and heterogeneous vehicle formations, (2) decaying transient motion which may be triggered by changes in leader position, perturbations and shape morphing commands, and (3) robust station keeping. Previous work on passivity-based formation control by the first two authors has focused on developing the theory for controller design, and on using numerical simulations to verify the performance of the proposed scheme. Here, we present the first experimental validation of the passivity-based formation control concept.
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