Model predictive control of cooperative vehicles using systematic search approach

• A MPC approach is proposed to guide a group of cooperative vehicles.
• Used objective function consists of sub-costs that account for each mission′s aspect.
• Control input is found by a systematic search over a predefined set of controls.
• Proposed search computation time is constant and less than traditional optimisation.
• Proposed approach efficiency and robustness are studied by Monte Carlo analysis.

This paper describes the guidance law design of a group of autonomous cooperative vehicles using model predictive control. The developed control strategy allows one to find a feasible near optimal control sequence with a short and constant computation delay in all situations. The control strategy takes other vehicles predicted positions into account for cooperation purpose. Numerical simulations are provided where a group of quadrotors must reach several way-points while avoiding obstacles and collisions inside the group. Results obtained using a realistic model of small quadrotors show that the approach could be usable in practice.