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A quadral-Fuzzy control approach to flight formation by a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles
Ref: CISTER-TR-200306       Publication Date: 2020

Abstract:
In this paper, we address the problem of the control of a fleet of unmanned aerial systems (UAVs) for cargo transportation systems. In the literature, several challenges must be solved for the service to be effective. In fact, in a fleet of UAVs, the main problem is to perform the control of the whole fleet motion by fusing the sensor information coming from individual UAVs. However, this approach induces a high cost as every UAV should have its advanced perception system. As an alternative, this work proposes the use of a single perception system by a fleet composed of a set of elementary UAVs (workers) with primitive low-cost sensors and a leader carrying a 3D Perception source. The use of multiple similar UAVs generates an overlap of information obtained by their sensors, and such redundancy overcomes failures and improves the accuracy of the system. We propose a Quadral-Fuzzy approach to manage the multiple-agents motion maintaining the cooperative transport in the spatial environment, and assuring information exchange. We also develop a new way to compute potential fields based on the possibility of fuzzy (fuzziness) measures. The proposed intelligent and cooperative cargo transportation system encompasses four high-coupled intelligent controllers that respectively control the leader and worker's motion and implement obstacle and collision avoidance procedures. Simulation results using a fleet of four aerial drones are presented showing the approach potential for solving usual problems in aerial cargo delivery such as limited pay-load, multi fusion sensors, and flyable collision-free path computation.

Marco António Simões Teixeira

,

Flávio Neves Juniór

,

Anis Koubâa

,

Lúcia Valéria Ramos de Arruda

,

André Schneider de Oliveira

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