Robust Formation Control for Cooperative Underactuated Quadrotors via Reinforcement Learning

IEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst. 2021 Oct;32(10):4577-4587. doi: 10.1109/TNNLS.2020.3023711. Epub 2021 Oct 5.

Abstract

In this article, the model-free robust formation control problem is addressed for cooperative underactuated quadrotors involving unknown nonlinear dynamics and disturbances. Based on the hierarchical control scheme and the reinforcement learning theory, a robust controller is proposed without knowledge of each quadrotor dynamics, consisting of a distributed observer to estimate the position state of the leader, a position controller to achieve the desired formation, and an attitude controller to control the rotational motion. Simulation results on the multiquadrotor system confirm the effectiveness of the proposed model-free robust formation control method.