Collision-free landing of multiple UAVs on moving ground vehicles using time-varying control barrier functions

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sankaranarayanan, Viswa Narayanan, Saradagi, Akshit, Satpute, Sumeet, Nikolakopoulos, George
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Sankaranarayanan, Viswa Narayanan
Saradagi, Akshit
Satpute, Sumeet
Nikolakopoulos, George
author_facet Sankaranarayanan, Viswa Narayanan
Saradagi, Akshit
Satpute, Sumeet
Nikolakopoulos, George
contents In this article, we present a centralized approach for the control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for landing on moving unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) using control barrier functions (CBFs). The proposed control framework employs two kinds of CBFs to impose safety constraints on the UAVs' motion. The first class of CBFs (LCBF) is a three-dimensional exponentially decaying function centered above the landing platform, designed to safely and precisely land UAVs on the UGVs. The second set is a spherical CBF (SCBF), defined between every pair of UAVs, which avoids collisions between them. The LCBF is time-varying and adapts to the motions of the UGVs. In the proposed CBF approach, the control input from the UAV's nominal tracking controller designed to reach the landing platform is filtered to choose a minimally-deviating control input that ensures safety (as defined by the CBFs). As the control inputs of every UAV are shared in establishing multiple CBF constraints, we prove that the control inputs are shared without conflict in rendering the safe sets forward invariant. The performance of the control framework is validated through a simulated scenario involving three UAVs landing on three moving targets.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_05939
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Collision-free landing of multiple UAVs on moving ground vehicles using time-varying control barrier functions
Sankaranarayanan, Viswa Narayanan
Saradagi, Akshit
Satpute, Sumeet
Nikolakopoulos, George
Robotics
Systems and Control
In this article, we present a centralized approach for the control of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for landing on moving unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) using control barrier functions (CBFs). The proposed control framework employs two kinds of CBFs to impose safety constraints on the UAVs' motion. The first class of CBFs (LCBF) is a three-dimensional exponentially decaying function centered above the landing platform, designed to safely and precisely land UAVs on the UGVs. The second set is a spherical CBF (SCBF), defined between every pair of UAVs, which avoids collisions between them. The LCBF is time-varying and adapts to the motions of the UGVs. In the proposed CBF approach, the control input from the UAV's nominal tracking controller designed to reach the landing platform is filtered to choose a minimally-deviating control input that ensures safety (as defined by the CBFs). As the control inputs of every UAV are shared in establishing multiple CBF constraints, we prove that the control inputs are shared without conflict in rendering the safe sets forward invariant. The performance of the control framework is validated through a simulated scenario involving three UAVs landing on three moving targets.
title Collision-free landing of multiple UAVs on moving ground vehicles using time-varying control barrier functions
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.05939