Coordinated Path Following of UAVs over Time-Varying Digraphs Connected in an Integral Sense

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new connectivity condition for UAVs with time-varying directed communication networks, ensuring coordinated path following through decentralized control under a more general connectivity assumption.

Contribution

It proposes a novel integral connectivity condition for directed graphs, extending the theoretical framework for UAV coordination with time-varying communication topologies.

Findings

Decentralized controller achieves exponential convergence.

Connectivity condition is more general than existing assumptions.

Simulation confirms effectiveness of the proposed method.

Abstract

This paper presents a new connectivity condition on the information flow between UAVs to achieve coordinated path following. The information flow is directional, so that the underlying communication network topology is represented by a time-varying digraph. We assume that this digraph is connected in an integral sense. This is a much more general assumption than the one currently used in the literature. Under this assumption, it is shown that a decentralized coordination controller ensures exponential convergence of the coordination error vector to a neighborhood of zero. The efficacy of the algorithm is confirmed with simulation results.