Distributed Formation Flight Control Using Constraint Forces

Abstract

A new approach for formation flight control of multiple aircraft is presented. Constraint forces are used to derive the dynamics of a constrained, multibody system. A stable, distributed control algorithm is designed based on the information flow graph for a group of aircraft. The aircraft will achieve a particular formation while ensuring an arbitrarily small bounded navigation tracking error with parameter uncertainties of the entire group. It is assumed that uncertainty exists in the drag coefficient of each aircraft. An adaptation algorithm is developed to compensate forthe uncertainty andestimate the drag coefficient. The advantageof the proposeddistributed control algorithm is that it allows the addition/removal of other aircraft into/from the formation seamlessly with simple modifications of thecontrolinput.Furthermore,thealgorithmprovidesinherentscalability.Simulationswereconductedtoverifythe proposed approach.