Continuum deformation of a multi-quadcopter system under time-varying communication weights

This paper studies the problem of continuum deformation of a multi-quadcopter system (MQS) under time-varying communication weights. Quadcopters are treated as particles of a deformable body with time-varying parameters, where a desired n-D continuum deformation is planned based on the trajectories of n+1 leaders placed at the vertices of n-D simplex. The followers distributed inside the simplex acquire the desired continuum deformation by local communication with time varying communication weights, where stability and convergence of the MQS continuum deformation can be proven. This paper formally characterizes safety of the MQS continuum deformation by ensuring inter agent collision avoidance and followers containment. Therefore, a large-scale MQS can safely deform in an obstacle-laden environment with modest computational cost.