Multi-task cooperative control in a heterogeneous ground-air robot team

For a heterogeneous multi-robot system composed by an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) equipped with a camera and several Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), we design a cooperative control scheme aimed at realizing a primary visual task, specifically designed to allow relative localization of the UGVs by the UAV, along with a generic secondary task to be carried out by the UGVs. The stability of the closed-loop system is formally proven. Inclusion of other behaviors, such as system navigation and ground obstacle avoidance, is considered. The theoretical results are validated by simulations in MATLAB and Gazebo/ROS.