Decentrailized formation flight control of quadcopters using robust feedback linearization

In this paper, a decentralized formation flight control scheme is proposed for a group of quadcopters using classical feedback linearization. Existing works typically involve a complicated design of nonlinear formation control laws, whereas the present work uses a linear control law for under-actuated nonlinear quadcopters. This linear formation control approach has a strong merit, in that it can be easily designed in a way to clearly guarantee the stability and performance of the collective nonlinear system quantitatively in terms of classical measures (e.g. stability and robustness margins). In this paper, the feedback linearization can transform nonlinear quadcopters dynamics into simple fourth-order and double integrators, for which a linear formation control law is designed to achieve a desired formation and heading synchronization through local information exchanges only. Moreover, a sliding-mode compensator is designed for possible dynamics inversion errors during the feedback linearization. Simulation results including a comparison with a recently proposed control law are presented to demonstrate the practical usefulness of the present work.