Methodology for the Synthesis of a Multicopter Controller Acting as a Swarm Agent using the Thermal Motion Equivalent Method

Abstract

The paper is dedicated to the development of a method for the synthesis of the control system of a swarm multicopter. The motion of the agents in the swarm is organised by the thermal motion equivalent method. The idea of the method is the behavioral similarity of the thermal motion of the atoms by the agents. In the practical implementation of the thermal motion equivalent method, it is important to ensure constancy of velocity and isotropy of agent dynamics. Violating these properties will cause the swarm to fail a mission, such as an area exploration, by reducing the RMS speed of the agents to zero. The proposed solution to these problems is to synthesize a modal controller for the agent-boundaries test system for the slowest control channel, thereby ensuring RMS velocity constancy of the agent. The synthesized controller is used as a filter in the fast-acting channels, the second horizontal channel and the vertical channel. In the fast-acting channels, an additional filter is proposed to bring their dynamics to the slowest channel, thereby ensuring isotropy. The inclusion of a limit on the maximum length of the equivalent field vector ensures isotropy. The synthesis was carried out using a simplified multicopter dynamics mathematical model, obtained with small UAV deviations from the vertical and without considering the Coriolis force. The methodology for the synthesis of a multicopter control system for functioning as part of a swarm is developed using the obtained results. Numerical simulation results of both a single vehicle in closed space and a swarm using a more complete nonlinear dynamic quadcopter model are presented. The proposed method has the advantage of simple synthesis using a linear model. Numerical simulation results confirm the operability of the developed methodology.