Multilayer self-organized aggregation control for large-scale unmanned aerial vehicle swarms

The cooperative control of large-scale unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms to establish a complex configuration is one of the most challenging goals. The poor scalability of the network topology, inability to self-organize the desired configuration and the separation of swarm configuration are the main obstructions that hinder the attainment of the goal. This paper studies the self-organized aggregation control of large-scale UAVs by designing a scalable distributed network architecture. We present a novel centerless and scalable multilayer graph model to solve the nonextensible problem of the traditional network topology. A large number of UAVs are organized with several interconnected and globally covered layers, and each layer consists of many undifferentiated clusters. Afterwards, a self-organized aggregation control law using the potential function method is designed for UAVs to realize autonomous configuration and configuration swarming under the consideration of collision and obstacle avoidance.