Distributed time-varying formation tracking of multi-quadrotor systems with partial aperiodic sampled data

In this article, a distributed formation tracking controller is proposed for Multi-agent systems (MAS) consisting of quadrotors. It is considered that each quadrotor in the MAS only shares its translation position information with its neighbors. Moreover, position information is transmitted at nonuniform and asynchronous time instants. The control system is divided into an outer-loop for the position control and an inner-loop for the attitude control. A continuous-discrete time observer is used in the outer-loop to estimate both position and velocity of the quadrotor and its neighbors using discrete position information it receives. Then, these estimated states are used to design the position controller in order to enable quadrotors to generate the required geometric shape. A finite-time attitude controller is designed to track the desired attitude as dictated by the position controller. Finally, a closed-loop stability analysis of the overall system including nonlinear coupling is performed.