A dynamic virtual structure formation control for fixed-wing UAVs

A dynamic virtual-structure formation control scheme is proposed to enable a formation of nonholonomic fixed-wing UAVs to execute coordinated formation changing manoeuvres along a planned formation trajectory. The control scheme builds upon our recently developed flexible virtual structure formation control scheme that enables a formation of fixed-wing UAVs to turn smoothly along the formation trajectory [15]. In this work, a dynamic formation reference generation algorithm is developed to compute the formation changing reference trajectories where each of these trajectories is executed by an extended trajectory tracking control scheme that is designed for this application. This dynamic formation control scheme enables the formation to execute time-parameterized formation reconfiguration plans stably along the planned formation trajectory. In the simulation, the proposed dynamic formation control scheme is validated using nonlinear six degrees of freedom (6DOF) fixed-wing UAV models and simulation results are presented.