TVFET-VD:Time-Varying Formation Encircling and Tracking Control Based on Visual Detection

Abstract

This paper proposes a whole process method of multi-quadrotors from detecting and locating to encircle and track targets. The reconnaissance quadrotor realizes accurate target detection based on the one-stage target detector of convolutional neural network. Then, based on a pinhole camera projection model, the target is located from the 2D pixel coordinates to 3D North East Down(NED) coordinates world. Finally, the hunter quadrotors realize the target encircling and the time-varying formation tracking based on the consensus theory. At the same time, we prove the stability of the time-varying formation tracking control. We built a multiple quadrotors platform composed of one reconnaissance quadrotor and four hunter quadrotors, and deployed the method on the platform to conduct a series of experiments with a minibus as the target for validation. The results indicate that reconnaissance quadrotor can accurately detect target and have small localization errors in the north and east directions. Hunter quadrotors can encircle and track targets in time-varying formation based on target information provided by reconnaissance quadrotor. Experiments have demonstrated that the method achieves high-speed and accurate target encirclement.