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Leader-Follower Formation Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Fault

Tolerant and Collision Avoidance Capabilities

Conference Paper · June 2015

DOI: 10.1109/ICUAS.2015.7152392

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2015 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems (ICUAS)
Denver Marriott Tech Center
Denver, Colorado, USA, June 9-12, 2015
Leader-Follower Formation Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with
Fault Tolerant and Collision Avoidance Capabilities
Z. X. Liu1 , X. Yu2 , C. Yuan3 and Y. M. Zhang4
Abstract— In this paper, a leader-follower formation control
of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) design methodol-
ogy is proposed to keep the desired formation, while simultane-
ously deal with the potential collision and actuator faults. The
proposed formation control is divided into outer-loop and inner-
loop controllers. First, a leader-follower control structure is
constructed as the outer-loop controller. Then, an adaptive fault
tolerant control (FTC) scheme along with a collision avoidance
strategy are combined as the inner-loop controller. Simulation
validations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of
this presented design method.
I. INTRODUCTION
The coordination of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAVs) has attracted a great deal of attention, due to the
potentially significant benefits offered by a group of UAVs
deploying in an organized topology [1]. These benefits in-
clude various practical applications, such as forest fire/health
surveillance [2], border patrol [3], natural resources explo-
ration [4], as well as search and rescue [5]. However, the
malfunctions of actuators in UAVs can not only adversely
affect the task performance, but also lead to the disastrous
consequences. In addition, collision avoidance is likewise an
important aspect since it can prevent vehicles from disrupting
or destroying each other and surrounding objects. These
problems severely threaten the safety of personnels from
ground and other manned aircrafts, natural environment,
and infrastructures. Thus, the safety of UAVs should be
guaranteed in the course of formation control.
In the past decade, numerous studies are carried out on
UAVs formation control. Various methods are adopted in
this application, such as: proportional-integral (PI) control
[8], [13], robust control [9], [10], linear quadratic (LQ)
control [6], [7], feedback linearization [14], hybrid super-
visory control [12], backstepping [17], and sliding mode
control (SMC) [11]. In addition, tremendous attention is
also paid on the formation control with consideration of
1 Z. X. Liu is a PhD student with Department of Mechanical
and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada,
l zhixia@encs.concordia.ca
2 X. Yu is a Post-doc Fellow with Department of Mechanical
and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada,
xiangyu1110@gmail.com
3 C. Yuan is a PhD student with Department of Mechanical
and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada,
chi yua@encs.concordia.ca
4 Y. M. Zhang is a Professor currently with the Department of Information
and Control Engineering, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an, Shaanxi
710048, China and on sabbatical leave from the Department of Mechan-
ical and Industrial Engineering, Concordia University, Montreal, Canada,
youmin.zhang@concordia.ca
978-1-4799-6009-5/15/$31.00 ©2015 IEEE
practical issues including collision avoidance and fault tol-
erant control (FTC). The formation control researches with
collision avoidance capability can be found in [15], [16],
[17], [18], while faults in formation control are considered
in other researches including communication faults (dropout,
delay, failure, etc.) [19], [20], [21] and actuator faults [22],
[23], [24]. The aforementioned formation control applica-
tions can effectively eliminate the influences of faults or
obstacles, whilst maintain the formation stability. However,
the combination of the collision avoidance and FTC abilities
in formation control has not been presented, which is critical
for formation control.
This paper proposes a leader-follower formation control
methodology with collision avoidance and FTC capabilities.
This method is intended to ensure all UAVs in the desired for-
mation while remaining free of collisions from both environ-
ment and inter-formation, and guarantee the system stability
in the event of actuator faults. The proposed approach con-
sists of two main portions: a FTC mechanism and a collision
avoidance mechanism. The operational procedure of these
mechanisms can be outlined as follows: 1) when a follower
UAV encounters actuator faults, the FTC mechanism will be
activated to accommodate the faults; 2) the collision may
occur among the UAVs, environmental obstacles, and the
faulty UAV, a collision avoidance function in the threatened
UAVs is then activated and the collision avoidance action is
conducted; 3) when all obstacles have been voided, all UAVs
ultimately return to the desired formation.
The contribution of this paper covers: 1) a PI control
approach is designed as the outer-loop controller to guaran-
tee the good formation keeping performance and eliminate
the steady-state error of trajectory tracking; 2) a collision
avoidance mechanism is incorporated to avoid both the
environmental obstacles and inner-formation vehicles. It is of
significance that the formation can be still kept without any
collision when one follower UAV deviates from its expected
trajectory in the presence of actuator faults
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 provides necessary preliminaries. The detailed
design procedure of the proposed control scheme is described
in Section 3. Simulation results are presented in Section 4,
while the conclusion is summarized in the last section.
II. PRELIMINARIES
A. Outer-Loop UAV Kinematics
In this paper, the considered flight formation is leader-
follower structure which consists of i (i ≥ 2) UAVs. The
1025
 B. Inner-Loop UAV Model Subject to Actuator Faults
Without loss of generality, the linear time-invariant dy-
namic model of the studied UAV can be described as:
Leader
UAV ẋ(t) = Ax(t) + Bu(t)
ψL (4)
y(t) = Cx(t),
yL
dli where x(t) ∈ <n , u(t) ∈ <m , and y(t) ∈ <p are the state,
input, and output vectors, respectively. A ∈ <n×n and B ∈
<n×m are the system and input matrices, C ∈ <p×n is an
ψi output matrix.
Follower dfi In practice, UAV control surfaces may be stuck at an
UAV unknown position due to hydraulics failure, the value of
yi
such a failure can be modeled as ū = [ū1 , ū2 , ..., ūm ]T .
ūj (j = 1, 2, ...., m) indicates the jth actuator is stuck at
the value ūj . Defining v(t) = [v1 , v2 , ..., vm ]T ∈ <m to
be the commanded control input signal. Then, the actual
xi xL control input u(t) with consideration of actuator faults can
Fig. 1: Illustration of formation geometry be represented as:

u(t) = v(t) + σ[ū − v(t)] = (I − σ)v(t) + σ ū, (5)

kinematic model of each individual UAV is: where σ = diag{σ1 , σ2 , ..., σm } is the failure pattern matrix.
σi = 1 when the ith actuator fails, otherwise σi = 0.
ẋi = vi cosψi Thus, system (4) in the presence of actuator faults can be
ẏi = vi sinψi (1) rewritten as:
ψ̇i = ωi , ẋ(t) = Ax(t) + B(I − σ)v(t) + Bσ ū. (6)

where (xi , yi ), vi , ψi , and ωi are the position, forward III. FORMATION CONTROLLER DESIGN
velocity, heading angle, and angular velocity of the ith UAV, A. Outer-Loop Controller Design
respectively.
Let (xL , yL ) be the actual position of leader UAV. As 1) Rigid Formation Control Strategy: Defining vi∗ and ωi∗
illustrated in Fig. 1, the actual distances between the leader to be the expected control laws distributing to inner-loop
and the ith UAV along the forward and lateral directions can controller of each follower. (3) can then be reconstructed as:
   
then be described as: ėf i −vL − dli ωL
=
ėli df i ωL
df i =(xi − xL )cosψi + (yi − yL )sinψi
cos(ψi − ψL ) −Dsin(ψi − ψL ) vi∗
  
+ Dcos(ψi − ψL ) +
(2) −sin(ψi − ψL ) −Dcos(ψi − ψL ) ωi∗
dli =(xi − xL )sinψi + (yi − yL )cosψi 
cos(ψi − ψL ) −Dsin(ψi − ψL ) vi − vi∗
 
− Dsin(ψi − ψL ), +
−sin(ψi − ψL ) −Dcos(ψi − ψL ) ωi − ωi∗
 
−vL − dli ωL
where D is the distance between the control point and the =
df i ωL
centre of mass [25].
cos(ψi − ψL ) −Dsin(ψi − ψL ) vi∗
  
Defining the separation distance errors between the desired + .
and actual distances in forward and lateral directions to be −sin(ψi − ψL ) −Dcos(ψi − ψL ) ωi∗
(7)
ef i = df i −ddf i and eli = dli −ddli , where ddf i and ddli namely
To guarantee the effective trajectory tracking performance
represent the desired distances along the forward and lateral
while eliminating the steady-state error of trajectory tracking,
directions. Moreover, let vL , ψL , and ωL denote the forward
a P I controller is applied. The outer-loop controller is
velocity, heading angle, and angular velocity of leader UAV,
thereby designed as:
respectively. The derivation of ef i and eli with regard to time  ∗  
can then be obtained: vi coseψ −sineψ
=
    ωi∗ −D 1
sineψ − D 1
coseψ
ėf i −vL − dli ωL  R  (8)
= −(k1P ef i + k1I eRf i dt) + vL + dli ωL
ėli df i ωL × ,
   −(k2P eli + k2I eli dt) − df i ωL
cos(ψi − ψL ) −Dsin(ψi − ψL ) vi
+ . where eψ = ψi −ψL , k1P , k1I , k2P , k2I > 0 are the feedback
−sin(ψi − ψL ) −Dcos(ψi − ψL ) ωi
(3) gains.

1026
 Formation
Specifications
Environmental
Obstacles &
Other UAVs
Out-loop
Controller
(vf ωf)
Collision
Avoidance
Mechanism (vv ωv) (v ω)
Inner-loop
Controller
(x y)
ith UAV
Fig. 2: Schematic diagram of the semi-rigid formation con-
trol strategy
2) Semi-Rigid Formation Strategy: To prevent UAVs from
destroying themselves and surrounding objects (other vehi-
cles, personnels, and infrastructures), a collision avoidance
mechanism should be generally incorporated into the forma-
tion control design. A semi-rigid formation strategy is then
obtained, this strategy is capable of guaranteeing all vehicles
keeping the desired formation while avoiding the obstacles
from both inter-formation and surrounding environment.
As illustrated in Fig. 2, the primary idea of this semi-rigid
formation is to modify the desired forward and angular ve-
locities while keeping the separation between the UAVs. The
essence of semi-rigid formation can also be mathematically
expressed as follows:
vi = vi∗ + vvi
(9)
ωi = ωi∗ + ωvi ,
where vi and ωi denote the ultimately desired forward and
angular velocities after modification, vvi and ωvi represent
the reactive obstacle avoidance terms for forward and angular
velocities of each UAV.
Before proceeding to the design procedure of collision
avoidance mechanism, the following assumption should be
satisfied.
Assumption 1: It is assumed that there is an onboard
sensing system in each UAV capable of detecting obstacles
(environmental obstacles and other UAVs) and measuring the
distance between the UAV and obstacles.
As addressed in Fig. 3, by employing the mechanical
impedance principle approach in [26], each individual UAV
in formation is allocated with a virtual repulsive force. This
force is intended to characterize the interaction of UAV
and its surrounding environment. Moreover, the forward and
angular velocities of each UAV vary accordingly based on
1027
Obstacles
Other
Vehicles
dL dR
ψL ψR
dmin
dmax
Fig. 3: Illustration of the collision avoidance mechanism
the variation of this force, which can be expressed as:
(
c(dmax − do )α if do < dmax
Ff = (10)
0 if do ≥ dmax ,
where do denotes the distance between the UAV and the
closest obstacle, α is a positive integer, dmax is the maxi-
mum distance between UAV and obstacle which causes no
fictitious forces (Ff = 0 if do ≥ dmax ), and the constant
integer c is determined by system calibration as follows:
Ff max = c(dmax − dmin )α , (11)
where Ff max is the maximum virtual repulsive force, and
dmin is the minimum acceptable collision avoidance dis-
tance.
The variation of heading angle to avoid an obstacle is then
achieved:
ψcL = Φ−1 Ff L
(12)
ψcR = Φ−1 Ff R ,
where ψcL and ψcR denote the regulation angle for collision
avoidance in UAV’s left and right sides, Φ = KI s2 +
KD s + KE is the mechanical impedance characterizing the
interaction of UAV and obstacles, KI , KD , KE ≥ 0 denote
the inertia, damping, and elastic constants, respectively. Ff L
and Ff R represent the fictitious forces with respect to the
closest left and right obstacles to the UAV, these two forces
are adopted to make the formation control system capable of
operating in more cluttered environment.
Therefore, the ultimate corrections to the forward and
angular velocities can be obtained by:
vvi = Φ−1 (Ff L sinψcL + FlR sinψcR )
(13)
ωvi = Φ−1 (Ff R − Ff L ).
B. Inner-Loop Controller Design
In order to effectively track the reference from outer-loop
controller in the absence/presence of actuator faults, a direct
adaptive control method [27] is employed here to deal with
actuator failures.
 Firstly, a reference model is constructed as follows:
   
Af 0 Bf 0
A= ,B =
ẋm (t) = Am xm (t) + Bm r(t), (14) 0 Al 0 Bl
 
−0.0334 −2.977 0 −9.81
−0.0016 −4.133 0.98 0 
where xm (t) ∈ <n , Am ∈ <n×n , Bm ∈ <n×m , r(t) ∈ <m Af =  
is a bounded reference input.  0.0077 −140.2 −4.435 0 
0 0 1 0
Since the objective of the state feedback state tracking  
(SFST) adaptive control [27] is to match the nominal system −0.732 −0.0143 −0.996 0.0706
(6) and reference model (14), if there exist state feedback  −893 −9.059 2.044 0 
Al = 
101.673 0.0186 −1.283

gain Ks and direct adaptive gains Kad1 and Kad2 along 0 
with an ideal control law v(t) = KsT x(t) + Kad1 r(t) + Kad2 0 0 1 0
 
such that the following matching conditions are satisfied: −1.075 −0.2453
 0.347 −4.133 
Bf = 
−140.22

A + B(I − σ)KsT = Am ; B(I − σ)Kad1 = Bm ; 0 
(15) 0 0
B(I − σ)Kad2 = −Bσ ū.  
0 0.244
328.653 308.498
When the adaptive feedback control law is considered as: Bl = 
 47.528 102.891


0 0
 
v(t) = K̂sT x(t) + K̂ad1 r(t) + K̂ad2 , (16) C=
1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0
0 0 0 0 −1 0 0 1
where K̂s , K̂ad1 , and K̂ad2 denote the estimates of Ks , The desired forward and angular velocities of the leader
Kad1 , and Kad2 . The error between (6) and (14) is e(t) = ∗ ∗
UAV are vL = 10m/s and ωL = 0.5deg/s. The desired
x(t) − xm (t), the derivative of e(t) can then be obtained: distances between the leader UAV and Follower-1 in forward
and lateral directions are ddf 1 = −100m and ddl1 = −100m,
ė(t) = Am e(t) + B(I − σ)(K̃sT x(t) + K̃ad1 r(t) + K̃ad2 ), while the expected distances between the leader UAV and
(17) Follower-2 with regard to forward and lateral directions are
where the errors between the estimated and actual values are ddf 2 = −100m and ddl2 = 100m. The starting positions
represented as K̃s = K̂s − Ks , K̃ad1 = K̂ad1 − Kad1 , and of leader, Follower-1, and Follower-2 UAVs are (0m, 0m),
K̃ad2 = K̂ad2 − Kad2 . (−100m, −100m), and (−100m, 100m), respectively. The
values of other adopted parameters for the controller design
Consequently, adopting the general adaptive scheme to are all summarized in Table I.
update the parameter estimates of adaptive feedback control
law (16), the adaptation laws can be given by: TABLE I: Parameter values

˙ T Parameter α dmax dmin Fmax KI KB KK

K̂s = −Γs Bm P e(t)xT (t)
˙ T
K̂ad1 = −Γad1 Bm P e(t)rT (t)
˙ T
K̂ad2 = −γad2 Bm P e(t),
where γad2 > 0, the positive definite and symmetric matrix
Γs ∈ <n×n and Γad1 ∈ <m×m . Whilst ATm P +P Am = −Q
is satisfied for the chosen positive definite matrices P =
P T ∈ <n×n and Q = QT ∈ <n×n . For the sake of space,
proof of this adaptation law can be referred to [27].
IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
In this paper, 3 UAVs are applied in the simulation
validation, one UAV is selected as the leader, other UAVs
are set as the followers. The model of the selected UAV
[24] is given as follows:
Value 2 100 50 2.5 0.1 0.2 1
(18)
A. Scenario Description
Two scenarios are selected to verify the effectiveness of
the proposed method:
1) In the first scenario, a dynamic obstacle is assumed
to move toward the formation with constant heading
angle and forward velocity. The trajectory of this
obstacle is calculated by: xobs = 2070 − 20t, yobs =
368 − 5t. The collision may occur if no collision
avoidance actions are conducted.
2) In the second scenario, one follower in the formation
suddenly encounters aileron stuck at 20o (at 60th sec-
ond) and rapidly deviates from the expected trajectory,
which may result in collision among the faulty UAV
and other healthy UAVs.

1028
 3500
Leader
Follower−1 Reference Leader Follower−1 Follower−2
3000
Follower−2 30
Obstacle

V (m/s)
2500 20

2000 10
Y Axis (m)

0
1500 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Obstacle’s trajectory Time (s)

Bank Angle (deg)

1000 80
60 Obstacle detected
500 40
Obstacle 20
0 Collision avoidance 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
−500 Time (s)
−500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
X Axis (m)
Fig. 6: Forward velocity and bank angle of each UAV in
Fig. 4: Two-dimensional trajectory of the UAVs formation
formation
Forward Distance (m)

−80
Whilst with the assistance of collision avoidance mechanism,
−100 the Follower-1 UAV can promptly detect the Follower-2
is approaching and maneuver correspondingly to a safe
−120 distance. In addition, the faulty UAV can accommodate the
Follower−1 to Leader
actuator fault and ultimately maintain keeping the expected
Follower−2 to Leader
−140 formation. Fig. 9 shows the corresponding performance of
0 50 100 150 200
Time (s) forward velocities and bank angles of the three UAVs while
200 Follower-2’s actuator fails.
Lateral Distance (m)

100
3500
Leader
0
Follower−1
3000
−100 Follower−2

−200 2500
0 50 100 150 200
Time (s)
2000
Y Axis (m)

Fig. 5: Distances between the leader and follower UAVs

1500
Fault occurs
B. Scenario 1 1000

As can be seen from Fig. 4, the Follower-1 UAV success- 500

fully avoids the potential collision with graceful performance
degradation when an obstacle is moving towards the for- 0
mation. More specifically, Fig. 5 illustrates that around 2m
forward and 25m lateral errors are yielded by Follower-1 −500
−500 0 500 1000 1500 2000 2500 3000
UAV during the collision avoidance action. X Axis (m)
It is displayed in Fig. 6 that this collision avoidance
Fig. 7: Two-dimensional trajectory of the UAVs formation
operation occurs at around 50th second, which is maneuvered
through the variation of the Follower-1 UAV’s bank angle.

C. Scenario 2
Fig. 7 shows a satisfied performance of both obstacle
avoidance and FTC strategies while maintaining a rigid
formation after a certain period of regulation. As revealed
in Fig. 8, when the actuator in Follower-2 UAV is stuck at
60th second, the distances between it and the leader UAV
in forward and lateral directions are significantly changed.
V. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a leader-follower formation control scheme
with integration of FTC and collision avoidance strategies is
presented. The characteristics of the proposed method are: 1)
a FTC function is designed to accommodate the unexpected
actuator faults so that the formation control can still be
maintained; 2) a collision avoidance mechanism is developed

1029
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