Title :
Formation flight of multiple fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles
Author :
Mingfeng Zhang ; Liu, Hugh H. T.
Author_Institution :
Inst. for Aerosp. Studies, Univ. of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada
Abstract :
This paper presents a formation control law based on the virtual structure approach which enables multiple fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to fly in a circular formation while keeping the whole formation team flying as a rigid entity. The motion of the formation center can be controlled independently as a virtual UAV, so existing control techniques involving a single UAV can be directly applied to a UAV team in formation to take advantages offered by multiple vehicles, such as expanded sensor coverage and increased system redundancy. In this paper, the performance and effectiveness of the proposed formation control algorithm are successfully demonstrated in path following and target tracking tasks through simulation.
Keywords :
autonomous aerial vehicles; path planning; position control; UAV; formation control algorithm; formation control law; formation flight; multiple fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles; path following; system redundancy; target tracking; virtual structure approach; Heuristic algorithms; Kinematics; Lyapunov methods; Target tracking; Turning; Unmanned aerial vehicles;
Conference_Titel :
American Control Conference (ACC), 2013
Conference_Location :
Washington, DC
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-0177-7
DOI :
10.1109/ACC.2013.6580066