Motion planning and control of formations of micro aerial vehicles

A model predictive control based algorithm for maintenance of leader-follower formations of micro-scale aerial vehicles is proposed in this paper. The approach is designed for stabilization of teams of unmanned quadrotor helicopters and for their motion planning into a distant target region. The presented method of the model predictive control with a planning horizon enables integration of an obstacle avoidance function into the local control of the formation as well as into the global plan of formation movement. Deployment of the method in real-world scenarios, with particular interest in failure recovery and inter-vehicle avoidance, is verified in various simulations.