Abstract
Beyond single-helicopter control, this book also touches on formation control of multiple helicopters. In Chapter 7, the concept of the Q-structure is introduced as a novel and flexible methodology to define and support a large variety of formations. The Q-structure allows automatic scaling of formations according to changes in the overall size of the helicopter team. The chapter begins by exploring the use of the Q-structure for formation control where perfect communication is present between all members of the team. The second part of the chapter focuses on how the Q-structure can be adapted and used for teams where communication is imperfect. In this chapter, we examine the properties of Q-structures in relation to other formation representation schemes, and look at the ways Q-structures can be used with artificial potential trenches to improve the scalability of the formations and support a large number of different formations. In particular, the Q-structure does not require explicit representation of every single node of the formation and is able to ensure the formation maintenance of a large number of helicopters. The formation is also robust against possible communication breakdown and/or limited wireless communication ranges.
Access provided by Autonomous University of Puebla. Download to read the full chapter text
Chapter PDF
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Ren, B., Ge, S.S., Chen, C., Fua, CH., Lee, T.H. (2012). Kinematic Formation Control Using Q-structures. In: Modeling, Control and Coordination of Helicopter Systems. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1563-3_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-1563-3_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-1562-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-1563-3
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)