This paper describes a guidance method which is applicable in the leader–follower formation control. By considering limitations on communication among the aircraft, using airborne seekers for relative states measurement is proposed, and accordingly a kinematic model for the leader–follower system is developed. A main contribution of this work is analysis of the formation keeping in various flight scenarios when a cascade loop-based guidance strategy is used. In the proposed control structure, to regulate the relative ranges and the relative angles toward the desired values, two separate control channels are designed and to overcome the leader maneuvers, two proper acceleration estimators are employed. The effectiveness of the proposed guidance strategy is evaluated via simulation examples.
XueRSongJCaiG. Distributed formation flight control of multi-UAV system with nonuniform time-delays and jointly connected topologies. Proc IMechE, Part G: J Aerospace Engineering2016; 230: 1871–1881.
2.
DefoortMFloquetTKokosyAet al.Sliding-mode formation control for cooperative autonomous mobile robots. IEEE Transact Industrial Electron2008; 55: 3944–3953.
3.
DefoortMKokosyAFloquetTet al.Motion planning for cooperative unicycle-type mobile robots with limited sensing ranges: a distributed receding horizon approach. Robot Autonom Syst2009; 57: 1094–1106.
4.
RezaeiMHMenhajMB. Stationary average consensus for high-order multi-agent systems. IET Control Theory Appl2017; 11: 723–731. DOI: 101049/iet-cta20160129.
5.
DehghaniMAMenhajMB. Integral sliding mode formation control of fixed-wing unmanned aircraft using seeker as a relative measurement system. Aerosp Sci Technol2016; 58: 318–327.
6.
HuJFengG. Distributed tracking control of leader–follower multi-agent systems under noisy measurement. Automatica2010; 46: 1382–1387.
7.
HongYHuJGaoL. Tracking control for multi-agent consensus with an active leader and variable topology. Automatica2006; 42: 1177–1182.
8.
DelinLRongzengXHaibinD. A guidance law for UAV autonomous aerial refueling based on the iterative computation method. Chinese J Aeronaut2014; 27: 875–883.
9.
AbdoMMValiARToloeiARet al.Stabilization loop of a two axes gimbal system using self-tuning PID type fuzzy controller. ISA Transact2014; 53: 591–602.
10.
AbdoMMValiARToloeiARet al.Improving two axes gimbal seeker performance using cascade control approach. Proc IMechE, Part G: J Aerospace Engineering2015; 229: 38–55. DOI: 01177/0954410014525130.
11.
ZhanSTYanWXFuZet al.Robust control of a yaw-pitch gimballed seeker. Aircraft Eng Aerosp Technol2015; 87: 83–91.
12.
Betser A, Vela PA, Pryor G, et al. Flying in formation using a pursuit guidance algorithm. In: Proceedings of the American control conference, Portland, OR, 8 June 2005, pp.5085–5090.
13.
TahkMJParkCSRyooCK. Line-of-sight guidance laws for formation flight. J Guid Control Dynam2005; 28: 708–716.
14.
Wang Y, Yan W and Yan W. A leader–follower formation control strategy for AUVs based on line-of-sight guidance. In: Proceedings of the IEEE international conference on mechatronics and automation, Changchun, China, 9 August 2009, pp.4863–4867.
15.
Sattigeri R, Calise A, Kim BS, et al. 6-DOF nonlinear simulation of vision-based formation flight. In: Proceedings of the AIAA guidance, navigation, and control conference, San Francisco, CA, 2005, pp.1–27.
16.
KimBSCaliseAJSattigeriRJ. Adaptive, integrated guidance and control design for line-of-sight-based formation flight. J Guid Control Dynam2007; 30: 1386–1398.
17.
RyooCKKimYHTahkMJ. Optimal UAV formation guidance laws with timing constraint. Int J Syst Sci2006; 37: 415–427.
18.
DehghaniMAMenhajMBGhaderiH. A hardware in the loop simulation testbed for vision-based leader–follower formation flight. Mechatronics2016. DOI: 101016/jmechatronics201610015.
19.
LiCYJingWX. Geometric approach to capture analysis of PN guidance law. Aerosp Sci Technol2008; 12: 177–183.
20.
HeSLinD. Continuous composite finite-time convergent guidance laws with autopilot dynamics compensation. ISA Transact2015; 58: 270–278.
