ICSES Transactions on Computer Networks and Communications

Vol. 7, No. 1, Sep. 2021

Formation Control for Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): Recent Developments and Research Challenges | Short Letter

Minh Nguyen a,, Hoang Hua-Trinh b, Hai Do c
a Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen, Viet Nam
b Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen, Vietnam
c Thai Nguyen University of Technology, Thai Nguyen, Vietnam

Highlights and Novelties


1- The paper points out the benefits of distributed control scheme compared to a centralized scheme.

2- The design of distributed protocols based on consensus algorithms is presented.

3- Different control strategies with benefits and drawbacks are presented to give an overview of formation control problems.

4- The paper shows the future research directions that can be done to improve control performance.


Manuscript Abstract
Recently, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) networks have many applications ranging from commercial to military fields. As multiple UAVs work together in a network, there exist various issues such as collision avoidance, formation keeping, or formation reconfiguration to adapt different working environments. While controlling, a single UAV requires huge communication resource and does not ensure safe operation for the UAV networks. Compared to a single platform, cooperative UAVs offer to benefit efficiency, flexibility, accuracy, robustness, and reliability in performing complex tasks. The formation controller acts as an outer guidance loop that drives UAVs to desired positions with desired velocities to obtain the desire formation shape. This paper provides fundamental basis of formation control mechanisms developed in the literature. This work also points out the advantages and disadvantages of the mechanisms. Potential research directions are provided with challenges to promote future implementations of the UAV networks. These support research directions and show promise in the fields.

Keywords
 UAV networks   Formation control   Consensus-based control   Distributed control 

Copyright and Licence
© Copyright was transferred to International Computer Science and Engineering Society (ICSES) by all the Authors.This manuscript is published in open-access manner based on the copyright licence of Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Cite this manuscript as
Minh Nguyen, Hoang Hua-Trinh, Hai Do, "Formation Control for Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): Recent Developments and Research Challenges," ICSES Transactions on Computer Networks and Communications (ITCNC), vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-4, Sep. 2021.

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