International Journal of Nonlinear Analysis and Applications

Sliding mode leader-follower formation protocol design for nonlinear model of multi quadrotor

Articles in Press

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Qom, Qom, Iran

2 Department of Aerospace Engineering, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

This paper deals with designing a sliding mode formation controller for a group of quadrotors in the presence of disturbances and uncertainties. In this approach, first-order, terminal, super-twisting, and nonsingular super-twisting terminal sliding mode controllers were developed and compared with each other. In the first-order controller, the phenomenon of chattering was observed in the control commands, which was solved by using the boundary layer method. Also, the results of the sensitivity analysis of the controllers showed that the nonsingular super-twisting terminal controller is less sensitive to the variation of the controller parameters, so this method was applied to control both the position and attitude of the flight formation of quadrotors. The formation strategy is based on a leader-follower approach. The leader tracks the prescribed reference trajectory, and the followers retain a constant distance from the leader. In addition, the proposed controllers are applied in the form of three missions to validate the formation controller results. In the first mission, the formation of three triangular quadrotors along the spiral path has been successfully attained. In the second task, the three quadrotors linearly track the S-shaped path. The third one is the same as the previous one, except that the number of quadrotors has increased to five. The results of the simulation showed that the convergence time and the overshoot/undershoot of the outputs are less than the other three methods in the nonsingular super-twisting terminal sliding mode controller. The simulation results for the mentioned missions for different paths, geometries, and the number of quadrotors indicate that the applied method has been successful in reducing the effects of disturbances and uncertainties, and the agents succeed in formation flight precisely.

Keywords

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International Journal of Nonlinear Analysis and Applications

Articles in Press, Corrected Proof
Available Online from 15 September 2025
  • Receive Date: 08 January 2023
  • Revise Date: 17 September 2024
  • Accept Date: 24 September 2024