Formation control of unmanned aerial vehicles based on the null-space

In this paper a new algorithm for formation control of autonomous flight vehicles is presented based on multiple control objectives. The strategy includes using the null space of a Jacobian matrix to achieve different control objectives. The mission is decomposed in elementary tasks and, for each one of them, command references are generated for each robot. The different commands obtained for each task are combined through a hierarchical method using the projection in the null space, to cater multiple tasks. The proposed system is scalable, whereby the control system can be easily expanded. Finally, the stability analysis of the proposed controllers is performed and simulation results are shown, to confirm the good performance of the controllers.