Collision avoidance between multi-UAV-systems considering formation control using MPC
Marc Ille, Toru Namerikawa · 2017
This paper deals with the scenario of two multi-UAV systems (so-called teams), each flying from a starting point to a target point. The teams meet on their ways and have to avoid collisions in the horizontal plane. Both teams work independent of each other but use the same formation-control and obstacle-collision-avoidance algorithm. The leaders measure obstacles' positions, use a Kalman Filter to estimate their movement and predict their future positions. With the information about the other agents' positions each agent calculates its reference trajectory. The leader also computes a trajectory to guide the team towards the target point. Distributed MPC is used for each agent to track its reference trajectory. If there is a risk of colliding with an obstacle, the MPC cost function is extended by a penalty term to ensure obstacle collision avoidance. The stability of formation control is proved in this paper. The capability of two teams avoiding collisions is shown in a simulation.