Cascade-type guidance law design for multiple-UAV formation keeping

A procedure to compute guidance commands for controlling the relative geometry of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in formation flight is proposed. The concepts of branch, global leader, and local leader/follower are used to represent the whole formation geometry. A positive-definite function defined in terms of the formation error is then introduced and the Lyapunov stability theorem is used to obtain the cascade type guidance law. This scheme leads to the synchronized flight of all UAVs while maintaining formation geometry. The results of a high fidelity nonlinear simulation of a reconnaissance and surveillance mission example are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed guidance law.