Distributed control of nonlinear elastic formation of unmanned aerial vehicles

For an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) formation in “leader-follower” mode, a bran-new concept of nonlinear elastic distance vector is proposed, which helps achieve much more excellent control effect. Based on the nonlinear elastic distance vector, through a big mountain of mathematical work the mathematical model of UAV formation flight is built and linearized skillfully. A new model of UAV formation flight is obtained, which has distinct physical meaning and simple form. And on this basis, by introducing some simplification and symmetry of feedback gain, a fire-new high-efficiency distributed controller of elastic formation is designed. Even better, it expends munch small control cost while providing such better control effect. Then the stability of the controller is proved subtly and a very important theorem offers sufficient conditions for the stability of the model is proposed. Simulation results show that controller can keep the formation much more effectively. In addition, the control quantity is only related to two elements: One is the speed of controlled vehicle itself, the other is the relative distance between controlled vehicle and its neighbor. For this reason, the control problem becomes more simple.