Formation stability analysis of unmanned multi-vehicles under interconnection topologies

In this paper, the overall formation stability of unmanned multi-vehicle is mathematically presented under interconnection topologies. A novel definition of formation error is first given and followed by the proposed formation stability hypothesis. Based on this hypothesis, a unique extension-decomposition-aggregation scheme is then employed to support the stability analysis for the overall multi-vehicle formation under a mesh topology. It is proved that the overall formation control system consisting of N number of nonlinear vehicles is not only asymptotically, but also exponentially stable in the sense of Lyapunov within a neighbourhood of the desired formation. This technique is shown to be applicable for a mesh topology but is equally applicable for other topologies. Simulation study of the formation manoeuvre of multiple Aerosonde UAVs, in 3D-space, is finally carried out verifying the achieved formation stability result.