The Controller Design Of The UAV Formation Based On Consensus Protocols

In the last few wars, UAVs have been widely used, which expand the mode ofwar in the traditional sense, not only reduces the cost of war, but also protects thesafety of the personnel. UAV formation technology is proposed based on thisadvantage, and this technology will enable the UAV to complete the reconnaissanceand strike missions better, which has an essential role in future wars. This articlewill discuss the technology of UAVs formation control which is based on theconsensus theory. The main research work are as follows：Firstly, UAV formation control method based on proportional-integral controllaw is given to achieve the UAV formation keeping and transformation. In thisapproach, by analyzing the UAV single motion model, the UAV formation relativemovement equations in three-dimensional space is given, and a proportional-integral controller is designed by a first speed, heading, altitude hold configuredautopilot. The controller makes the formation in the desired formation, and duringthe flight, by the external input instructions; the formation transformation can becompleted quickly to ensure completion of the formation flight tasks successfully.Secondly, take the advantage of the adjacency matrix and Laplacian matrixdefined in the graph theory and their related properties, describing thecommunication topological relations among the UAV formation; based on theconsensus theory, formation consensus control algorithm for the communicationwith time-varying delay is given, then the stability of the algorithm using theLyapunov-Krasosvskii function is analyzed. By computer simulation, the algorithmmeets the desired requirement is proved, and the error convergent fast, thereby themethod is verified effectively.Finally, a control algorithm based on the consensus theory is proposed for bothcommunication and input delays presented in the formation system. Then thestability of the algorithm is analyzed by using the matrix analysis theory and thegeneralized Nyquist stability criterion. The simulated results prove the controlstrategy can meet the demands, and give the relation function of location, speeddeviation and time delay, thereby verifies the method is effective.