Efficient coordination of multiple-aircraft systems

In this paper we address the problem of planning the motion of several independent aircraft, each with its own assigned destination, with the objective of reducing a measure of the overall cost of motion, such as total fuel consumption, or airspace congestion. To this purpose, the aircraft have the ability to temporarily join formation with others, if deemed appropriate. Since joining formation with other aircraft might require a detour from the shortest path to the current destination, one must determine when and under what conditions formation flight results in a reduction in the total cost. Hence, formation flight is not imposed a priori on the system, but rather is determined as the optimal solution to a cost optimization problem. We will present a complete solution for the centralized, complete information case; even though this solution if computationally prohibitive for large number of aircraft, we will use its restriction to the two-aircraft case to develop scalable, decentralized algorithms for use with systems composed of many aircraft, with communication constraints. Simulation examples are presented.