Consensus based deviated cyclic pursuit for target tracking applications

Decentralised strategies for target tracking has been studied extensively in the literature. In this paper, we present a strategy which gives the flexibility to change formation while the UAVs are executing a mission. A target is assumed to be enclosed if the UAVs encircle the target at a given radius while being uniformly distributed around it. If we want to close on to the target or if we want to enclose a wider area around the target, the radius needs to change. In a decentralised scheme, all the vehicles have to be informed about the new radius, which is difficult when the number of vehicles are larger. The strategy proposed in this paper can induce a change in radius by changing a parameter in one of the vehicles picked randomly from the group. The idea is based on consensus in deviated pursuit. The control law is simple to compute and requires only bearing angle measurement. We have analysed the system assuming unicycle kinematics. The strategy is then implemented in 6-DOF dynamical model of the UAVs and simulated in MATLAB and in Hardware-in-loop simulator.