A smooth hybrid symbolic control for the formation of UAVs over a partitioned space

This paper presents and implements a smooth hybrid supervisory control mechanism for the formation of unmanned helicopters. A polar partitioning scheme is utilized to bisimilarly abstract the motion space to find a finite state model for the motion dynamics of UAVs. To implement this algorithm, a hierarchical control structure is introduced which uses a discrete supervisor on the top layer that is connected to the regulation layer via an interface layer. The implantation issues of the proposed algorithm are investigated and a control mechanism is introduced to smoothly transit over the partitioned space without any jump on the control signals while preserving the bisimulation relation between the abstract model and the original continuous system. Actual flight test results are presented to verify the algorithm and the control structure performance.