Collision‐free formation generation and tracking of unmanned aerial vehicles based on physicomimetics approach

Abstract

AbstractThis paper investigates the problem of collision‐free leader–follower formation generation and tracking of multiple fixed‐wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). A group of UAVs, described by unicycle‐type models subject to velocity constraints, are required to form a desired formation, while tracking a virtual leader and achieving collision‐free flight. To handle this problem, a novel control law based on physicomimetics approach is proposed, which integrates the formation generation, formation tracking, and collision avoidance together. Physical forces are imitated to design artificial forces used in control laws that drive multiple UAVs to accomplish desired collaborative behaviors. Further, the virtual repulsion is embedded in the physicomimetics‐based control scheme to achieve obstacle avoidance naturally. The artificial forces have similar meaning to the physical forces because of similar forms, which facilitates the design and adjustment of the control strategy. Specially, to deal with the speed constraints of fixed‐wing UAVs, a saturation function is applied to modify the control laws and the stability is proved theoretically. Finally, numerical simulations and hardware‐in‐the‐loop experiments are provided to verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme.