Cooperation between Aerial and Ground vehicle groups for Reconnaissance missions

In this paper, we focus on the interaction between a group of ground vehicles and a group of aerial vehicles. The ground agents interact through time-invariant rules, synchronize their velocities using a TDMA-based communication protocol, and maintain cohesion and separation by means of interagent potential forces. Ground vehicles estimate their formation´s centroid using delayed information and transmit their estimates to the aerial group which circles the ground formation´s centroid while avoiding midair collisions. Stability of the ground group motion is established in a Lyapunov framework, exploiting the properties of the non-negative matrices involved. A Lyapunov analysis is also used to ensure that UAVs track the ground group´s centroid