PROJECT TITLE :

Vision-Based Distributed Formation Control Without an External Positioning System

ABSTRACT:

During this paper, we have a tendency to present a totally distributed solution to drive a team of robots to achieve a desired formation in the absence of an external positioning system that localizes them. Our answer addresses two fundamental issues that seem in this context. First, we tend to propose a 3-D distributed control law, designed at a kinematic level, that uses 2 simultaneous consensus controllers: one to manage the relative orientations between robots, and another for the relative positions. The convergence to the desired configuration is shown by comparing the system with time-varying orientations against the equivalent approach with fastened orientations, showing that their difference vanishes as time goes to infinity. Second, in order to use this controller to a group of aerial robots, we tend to mix this idea with a unique sensor fusion algorithm to estimate the relative create of the robots by using onboard cameras and information from the inertial measurement unit. The algorithm removes the influence of roll and pitch from the camera pictures and estimates the relative cause between robots by using a structure from the motion approach. Simulation results, in addition to hardware experiments with a team of three quadrotors, demonstrate the effectiveness of the controller and the vision system working together.