Vision-Based Formation Control of Aerial Vehicles

The authors propose a general solution for the problem of distributed, vision-based formation control of aerial vehicles. The solution is based on pure bearing measurements, optionally augmented with the corresponding distances. As opposed to the state of the art, the control law does not require auxiliary distance measurements or estimators, it can be applied to leaderless or leader-based formations with arbitrary topologies, and it has global convergence guarantees. This approach is validated through simulations and experiments on a platform of three quadrotors.

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