Steady flight of miniature fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle flocking by using biological algorithm

Abstract

This paper focuses on solving cohesive flocking problem from the biological point of view. Twelve variables are adopted to draw the kinematic characteristics of the fixed-wing UAV. A weighted and undirected graph is applied to describe the time-variant and distance-related interaction relationship among the UAVs. Based on the proposed model and the communication mechanism, a distributed cooperation approach is designed to force groups of miniature fixed-wing UAVs to be capable of collaboratively accomplishing such predefined task like a flock of birds. During the evolutionary process, three constraint conditions should be considered. The first one is that each UAV flies under small roll angle and small pitch angle. Second, one forward speed is necessary for the flight of each fixed-wing UAV. The last constraint condition is that the shorter the adjustment time, the better within the error margin of steady-state value. Three constraint conditions are skilfully taken as evaluation criteria to determine the communication network's coupling strength. Numerical simulations are provided to validate the feasibility of the proposed approach.