Distributed Predefined-Time Control for Cooperative Tracking of Multiple Quadrotor UAVs

Abstract

Dear Editor, This letter addresses the predefined-time control for cooperative tracking of multiple quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) under a directed communication network. A predefined-time distributed estimator is first introduced to accurately get the reference velocity and acceleration for each UAV. Then, a cascade predefined-time control strategy is proposed to guarantee that all the UAVs track the reference trajectory while maintaining a preassigned configuration, where an attitude constraint algorithm is developed to avoid the flipping over of each VAV. Stability analysis demonstrates that the tracking errors of the closed-loop systems converge to zero within a predefined time. Finally, experiment results validate the proposed control strategy.