Cooperative Circumnavigation for Multi-Quadrotor Systems via Onboard Sensing

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel cooperative circumnavigation framework for multi-quadrotor systems that enables target tracking without external localization, using onboard sensing, advanced state estimation, and formation control, validated through extensive experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a new perception and estimation strategy combined with a formation control approach for multi-quadrotor circumnavigation without external localization.

Findings

Effective target tracking in occluded environments.

Robustness demonstrated through quadrotor failure experiments.

Accurate relative localization using fused visual-inertial data.

Abstract

A cooperative circumnavigation framework is proposed for multi-quadrotor systems to enclose and track a moving target without reliance on external localization systems. The distinct relationships between quadrotor-quadrotor and quadrotor-target interactions are evaluated using a heterogeneous perception strategy and corresponding state estimation algorithms. A modified Kalman filter is developed to fuse visual-inertial odometry with range measurements to enhance the accuracy of inter-quadrotor relative localization. An event-triggered distributed Kalman filter is designed to achieve robust target state estimation under visual occlusion by incorporating neighbor measurements and estimated inter-quadrotor relative positions. Using the estimation results, a cooperative circumnavigation controller is constructed, leveraging an oscillator-based autonomous formation flight strategy. We conduct extensive indoor and outdoor experiments to validate the efficiency of the proposed circumnavigation framework in occluded environments. Furthermore, a quadrotor failure experiment highlights the inherent fault tolerance property of the proposed framework, underscoring its potential for deployment in search-and-rescue operations.