Model-free fuzzy leader-follower formation control of fixed wing UAVs

This paper deals with three dimensional leader-follower formation control of Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) based on fuzzy logic based controllers. To achieve this goal, based on kinematic equations, a formation strategy is designed such that a follower keeps a relative position from a leader in the leader body frame. Then, fuzzy logic based controllers are designed to control the speed and attitude of the follower to minimize the kinematic formation errors. The main contribution of the proposed fuzzy controllers is to achieve any three dimensional formation of fixed wing UAVs with unknown nonlinear dynamics. Simulation results for a team of three UAVs indicate the acceptable performance of the proposed control scheme.