Design of formation flight control based on virtual body frame of the team formation

In this paper, novel concepts of virtual body frame and body attitude of the team formation are proposed. A corroding to this definition, a nonlinear control algorithm is designed for the formation unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in three dimensions. Based on the novel error formulation of follower and leader vehicles in the inertial frame, control command is developed for the follower vehicles´ velocity, yaw angle and pitching angle. The simulation on the control system of equilateral triangle formation flight presents that the algorithm is fast and accurate to realize the tracking control command without collision. Further more, it can give an intuitive observation and description of the formation plane´s adjustment in the inertial frame compared with the traditional methods; such demonstrates the correctness and effectiveness of the design.