Cooperative Tracking a Moving Target Using Multiple Fixed-wing UAVs

Abstract

A cooperative tracking scheme is presented in this paper for multiple fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track an uncooperative, moving target. It is comprised of a target loitering algorithm and a formation flight algorithm. The loitering algorithm enables a constant speed UAV to circle around a moving target, whose speed is allowed to vary up to the UAV's speed. The formation algorithm enables cooperative tracking using multiple UAVs by keeping them flying in a circular formation with equal inter-vehicle angular separation. Under this formation algorithm, the formation center can be controlled independently to perform target loitering, and the admissible range of the target's speed would not be affected for given UAVs. The performance of the proposed tracking system is verified in numerical simulations.