Bilateral teleoperation of multiple UAVs with decentralized bearing-only formation control

We present a decentralized system for the bilateral teleoperation of groups of UAVs which only relies on relative bearing measurements, i.e., without the need of distance information or global localization. The properties of a 3D bearing-formation are analyzed, and a minimal set of bearings needed for its definition is provided. We also design a novel decentralized formation control almost globally convergent and able to maintain bounded and non-vanishing inter-distances among the agents despite the absence of direct distance measurements. Furthermore, we develop a multi-master/multi-slave teleoperation setup in order to control the overall behavior of the group and to convey to the human operator suitable force cues, while ensuring stability in presence of delays and packet losses over the master-slave communication channel. The theoretical framework is validated by means of extensive human/hardware in-the-loop simulations using two force-feedback devices and a group of quadrotors. © 2011 IEEE.