Coordinated Path Following of UAVs using Event-Triggered Communication over Time-Varying Networks with Digraph Topologies

TL;DR

This paper introduces an event-triggered communication algorithm for UAVs that reduces communication load while ensuring coordinated path-following with exponential convergence, suitable for time-varying network topologies.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel decentralized event-triggered control method for UAV coordination that minimizes communication without sacrificing convergence guarantees.

Findings

Significant reduction in communication volume compared to continuous methods.

Guarantees exponential convergence of coordination errors.

No chattering issues due to established lower bounds on event intervals.

Abstract

In this article, a novel time-coordination algorithm based on event-triggered communications is proposed to achieve coordinated path-following of UAVs. To be specific, in the approach adopted a UAV transmits its progression information over a time-varying network to its neighbors only when a decentralized trigger condition is satisfied, thereby significantly reducing the volume of inter-vehicle communications required when compared with the existing algorithms based on continuous communications. Using such intermittent communications, it is shown that a decentralized coordination controller guarantees exponential convergence of the coordination error to a neighborhood of zero. Also, a lower bound on the interval between two consecutive event-triggered times is provided showing that the chattering issue does not arise with the proposed algorithm. Finally, simulation results validate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.