• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.39 no.2
• /
• pp.121-127
• /
• 2011

This paper presents an autonomous formation flight algorithm for micro aerial vehicles (MAVs) and its flight test results. Since MAVs have severe limits on the payload and flight time, formation of MAVs can help alleviate the mission load of each MAV by sharing the tasks or coverage areas. The proposed formation guidance law is designed using nonlinear dynamic inversion method based on 'Leader-Follower' formation geometric relationship. The sensing of other vehicles in a formation is achieved by sharing the vehicles' states using a high-speed radio data link. the designed formation law was simulated with flight data of MAV to verify its robustness against sensor noises. A series of test flights were performed to validate the proposed formation guidance law. The test result shows that the proposed formation flight algorithm with inter-communication is feasible and yields satisfactory results.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.36 no.9
• /
• pp.859-866
• /
• 2008

A guidance scheme for controlling the relative geometry of multiple flight vehicle formation flying is proposed. Each flight vehicle in the formation takes the roles of leader and follower simultaneously except for the formation leader. In this scheme, the flight commands for a leader are shared by all the followers and this leaders to a synchronized flight of all flight vehicles comprising the formation. Lyapunov stability theorem is used to obtain the guidance law. High fidelity nonlinear simulation results are presented to show the effectiveness of the proposed guidance law using a reconnaissance and surveillance mission example.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.15 no.1
• /
• pp.8-14
• /
• 2009

A formation flight guidance logic that enables the leader-follower station keeping between two UAVs is presented in this paper. The logic is motivated by the investigation of the relation between the proportional navigation and the nonlinear trajectory tracking guidance law, The simplicity of the presented method provides computational efficiency and allows easy implementation. An excellent performance of the proposed logic is demonstrated via various numerical simulations for multiple UAVs environment.