Optimal formation control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with obstacle avoidance

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs) as a formation can accomplish missions with ease than a single UAV. Hence UAVs find applications in environmental monitoring, surveillance tasks etc. In this paper, a controller is synthesized in optimal control framework for achieving any desired formation.By properly choosing formation vectors any formation can be achieved. While moving in formation the UAVs may encounter obstacles on its way and it is necessary to avoid these obstacles. Obstacle avoidance is also incorporated along with formation control. The obstacle avoidance strategy implemented is capable of making obstacle avoidance manoeuvres in three dimensions, thus making it suitable for any realistic obstacle avoidance scenarios.