UAV Formation Shape Control via Decentralized Markov Decision Processes

Md Ali Azam (azam.ete.ruetgmail.com)
Hans D Mittelmann (mittelmannasu.edu)
Shankarachary Ragi (Shankarachary.Ragisdsmt.edu)

Abstract: In this paper, we present a decentralized unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm formation control approach based on a decision theoretic approach. Specifically, we pose the UAV swarm motion control problem as a decentralized Markov decision process (Dec-MDP). Here, the goal is to drive the UAV swarm from an initial geographical region to another geographical region where the swarm must form a three-dimensional shape (e.g., surface of a sphere). As most decision-theoretic formulations suffer from the curse of dimensionality, we adapt an existing fast approximate dynamic programming method called nominal belief-state optimization (NBO) to solve the formation control problem approximately. We perform numerical studies in MATLAB to validate the performance of the above control algorithms.

Keywords: swarm intelligence; formation control; decentralized Markov decision process; approximate dynamic programming

Category 1: Applications -- Science and Engineering

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Entry Submitted: 02/11/2021
Entry Accepted: 02/11/2021
Entry Last Modified: 03/27/2021

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