Formation Control Technology of Fixed-Wing UAV Swarm Based on Distributed Ad Hoc Network

Abstract

The formation control technology of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm is a current research hotspot, and formation switching and formation obstacle avoidance are vital technologies. Aiming at the problem of formation control of fixed-wing UAVs in distributed ad hoc networks, this paper proposed a route-based formation switching and obstacle avoidance method. First, the consistency theory was used to design the UAV swarm formation control protocol. According to the agreement, the self-organized UAV swarm could obtain the formation waypoint according to the current position information, and then follow the corresponding rules to design the waypoint to fly around and arrive at the formation waypoint at the same time to achieve formation switching. Secondly, the formation of the obstacle avoidance channel was obtained by combining the geometric method and an intelligent path search algorithm. Then, the UAV swarm was divided into multiple smaller formations to achieve the formation obstacle avoidance. Finally, the abnormal conditions during the flight were handled. The simulation results showed that the formation control technology based on distributed ad hoc network was reliable and straightforward, easy to implement, robust in versatility, and helpful to deal with the communication anomalies and flight anomalies with variable topology.

Energy-Efficient Post-Failure Reconfiguration of Swarms of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

“…For this purpose, the control algorithms have been designed, with a backstepping approach, using local information of neighbouring nodes within a time-varying formation. A method of fixed-wing UAV swarm formation control using waypoints based on distributed ad hoc networks is elaborated by Suo et al in [16]. A hypothesis related to a distributed fault-tolerant mechanism using a policy-based election algorithm for an uncertain environment is addressed by Wang et al in [17].…”

Advances in UAV Detection, Classification and Tracking

“…This manuscript also suggests some of the recommendations that may improve the privacy and security aspects, such as the registration of drone licenses. This will ensure the authorities identify the specific drone that has created an inconvenience in the jurisdiction [85][86][87][88][89][90][91]. Moreover, there must be flying permits allotted after necessary training to limit the illegal utilization of drones in any activity.…”

Optimization Methods Applied to Motion Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Review

“…Phung and Ha. [85][86][87][88] developed a novel technique with spherical vector-based particle swarm optimization (SPSO) that ensures safety, feasibility, and optimal paths and gives results better than classic PSO, QPSO, θ-PSO, and various other algorithms.…”