A hybrid system model and overlapping decomposition for vehicle flight formation control

The overlapping control design approach has recently been extended by Iftar and Ozguner to cover hybrid systems. In this paper we demonstrate the utility of the approach with a new example from flight formation control. A group of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are required to fly in some desired formations in some situations. However, coordination and management within a close formation flight group is still a critical issue. Because of the interconnection and interactions of subsystems in a formation flight group, it is difficult to design the controllers. In this paper, we first introduce a hybrid system model and consider a triangle as a basic element of flight formation, so that a more general configuration is decomposed into several triangular subsystems. By applying the inclusion and extension principles from overlapping control theory, the system is expanded into several triangular subsystems that do not interconnect with each other. Upon contraction, examples show that the controllers work effectively.