High-Level Nonlinear Underactuated Controller for a Leader-Follower Formation Involving a Miniature Helicopter and a Ground Robot

This work addresses a kinematic leader-follower cooperative control scheme for a helicopter and a ground mobile robot. First, a nonlinear under actuated control strategy previously proposed for the UAV is implemented to track a UGV. In the sequel, the formation control strategy based on the kinematics model of both vehicle and a nonlinear controller based on its inverse kinematic is proposed to guide the leader-follower formation. It is important to emphasize that the UAV references are compensated in the fashion of a cascade inner-closed loop by the UAV nonlinear under actuated controller. Simulation results validating the proposed system are presented and discussed.