Fuel efficient three dimensional controller for leader-follower UAV formation flight

A fuel efficient control scheme for aircraft formation flight is proposed based on energy maneuverability method. In formation flight, follower aircraft usually uses more thrust than the leader aircraft to maintain a formation pattern, especially during the join-up phase or turning phase. The fuel difference between a leader and a follower is increased as mission time increases, and therefore some mission cannot be completed because of the fuel shortage of a follower. In this study, a new formation controller minimizing the fuel difference of the aircrafts is proposed utilizing the energy equation. To control the velocity for formation flight, flight path angle is used instead of thrust. Numerical simulation is performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method.