Formation stability analysis of unmanned multi-vehicles under interconnection topologies.

In this paper, the overall formation stability of an unmanned multi-vehicle is mathematically presented under interconnection topologies. A novel definition of formation error is first given and followed by the proposed formation stability hypothesis. Based on this hypothesis, a unique extension–decomposition–aggregation scheme is then employed to support the stability analysis for the overall multi-vehicle formation under a mesh topology. It is proved that the overall formation control system consisting ofNnumber of nonlinear vehicles is not only asymptotically stable, but also exponentially stable in the sense of Lyapunov within a neighbourhood of the desired formation. This technique is shown to be applicable for a mesh topology but is equally applicable for other topologies. A simulation study of the formation manoeuvre of multiple Aerosonde UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), in 3-D space, is finally carried out verifying the achieved formation stability result. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]