Linear Quadratic Control for Quadrotors UAVs Dynamics and Formation Flight

Abstract

Cooperative control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) is currently being researched for a wide range of applications. Applicability of aerial unmanned systems might be increased by formation flight. After a necessary overview of quadrotor flight dynamics and linear quadratic control fundamentals, this control technique is applied to the full quadrotor dynamics. Then the more recent and challenging neural networks based control strategy is introduced from a theoretical perspective and applied to the quadrotor vertical dynamics; the results are compared with the relevant linear quadratic controlled behaviour. Finally, based on the developed single-quadrotor control architectures, a practical leader-follower formation concept is simulated, both for the linear quadratic and the neural networks based approach.