• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.19-24
• /
• 2016

Positional stability analysis based on aerodynamic forces and induced moments of formation flight using two small aircraft models is presented. The aerodynamic force and moments of the trailing aircraft are analyzed in the aspect of flight stability. The induced moments with the change of local flow direction by wing-tip vortex from the leading aircraft can affect the flight positional stability of aircraft in closed formation flight. Aerodynamic forces and moments of trailing aircraft model are measured by 6-component internal balance at the 49 locations with vertical and lateral space between two aircraft models. Results are shown that the positional stability of trailing aircraft in formation flight can be analyzed by positional stability derivatives with vertical and lateral space. It is concluded that flying positions can be important factors for aircraft position stability due to induced aerodynamic force and moments with vertical and lateral spacing by the variation of flow pattern from the leading aircraft in formation flight.

• IEMEK Journal of Embedded Systems and Applications
• /
• v.11 no.6
• /
• pp.343-351
• /
• 2016

In this study, we implemented a formation flight control system using two drones. Ground control system communicates with drones by MAVLink protocol, does keep watch on drone's status and sends simultaneously formation flight instructions to drones in real time. Two drones have been able to fly by a formation flight algorithm without crashing while maintaining the same speed, and a constant distance and altitude.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
• /
• 2005.06a
• /
• pp.463-467
• /
• 2005

In this paper, the guidance law applicable to formation flight of UAV in three-dimensional space is proposed. The concept of miss distance, which is commonly used in the missile guidance laws, and Lyapunov stability theorem are effectively combined to obtain the guidance commands of the wingmen. The propose guidance law is easily integrated into the existing flight control system because the guidance commands are given in terms of velocity, flight path angle and heading angle to form the prescribed formation. In this guidance law, communication is required between the leader and the wingmen to achieve autonomous formation. The wingmen are only required the current position and velocity information of the leader vehicle. The performance of the proposed guidance law is evaluated using the complete nonlinear 6-DOF aircraft system. This system is integrated with nonlinear aerodynamic and engine characteristics, actuator servo limitations for control surfaces, various stability and control augmentation system, and autopilots. From the nonlinear simulation results, the new guidance law for formation flight shows that the vehicles involved in formation flight are perfectly formed the prescribed formation satisfying the several constraints such as final velocity, flight path angle, and heading angle.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
• /
• v.9 no.2
• /
• pp.71-78
• /
• 2008

New formation flight controller for unmanned aerial vehicles is proposed. A behavioral decentralized control approach called formation geometry center control is adopted. Trajectory tracking as well as formation geometry keeping are the purpose of the formation flight, and therefore two controllers are designed: a trajectory tracking controller for reference trajectory tracking, and a position controller for formation geometry keeping. Each controller is designed using Lyapunov stability theorem to guarantee the asymptotic stability. Formation flight controller is finally obtained by combining the trajectory tracking controller and the formation geometry keeping controller using a weighting parameter that depends on the relative distance error between unmanned aerial vehicles. Numerical simulations are performed to validate the performance of the proposed controller.

• 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.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
• /
• v.10 no.1
• /
• pp.30-36
• /
• 2009

Many formation guidance laws have been proposed for VAV formation flight. Since most autonomous formation flight methods require various active communication links between the vehicles to know motion information of other vehicles, damage to the receiver or the transmitter and communication delay are critical problem to achieve a given formation flight mission. Therefore, in this point of view, the method that does not need an inter-vehicle communication is preferred in the autonomous formation flight. In this paper, we first summarize the formation guidance law without an inter-vehicle communication using feedback linearization and sliding mode control proposed in previous study. We also propose the modified formation guidance law with robust disturbance observer, which can provide significantly better performance than previously mentioned guidance law in case that other vehicles maneuver with large accelerations. The robust disturbance observer can estimate uncertainties generated by acceleration of leader vehicle. By eliminating the uncertainties using the estimated uncertainties, VAVs are able to achieve the tight formation flight. The performance of the proposed approach is validated by numerical simulations.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.18 no.2
• /
• pp.87-93
• /
• 2012

In this paper, a formation guidance method for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) to simulate the formation flight of birds proposed. The proposed method solves all issues of approaching for formation, formation keeping, and scarce chance to be collided with each UAV during formation process. Also, we design the feedforward controller to compensate the change of speed and heading for maneuvering of the leader UAV and the feedback controller to consider the response lag of the system. The stability and performance of the proposed controller is verified via numerical simulations of the full 6-Dof model of UAV.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.17 no.9
• /
• pp.1092-1097
• /
• 2014

It is difficult to perform automatic formation flight of UAV (Unmanned Aerial vehicle) when GPS (Global Positionig System) is out of order or has a system error, since the relative position estimation in the flight group is impossible in that case. In this paper, we design a relative localization system for the automatic formation flight of UAV. For this purpose, we adopt digital beam forming (DBF) to estimate the angle with the central controller of the flight group and Particle Filtering scheme to compensate the estimation error of ToA (time of arrival) method. Computer simulation results present a proper distance between the central controller and a following unit to maintain the automatic formation flight.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
• /
• v.46 no.12
• /
• pp.1012-1020
• /
• 2018

In order to improve the capability of mission flight of tiltrotor UAV that has been developed by Korea Aerospace Research Institute, a simulation study on the formation flight of autonomous control 5 level has been performed. The formation flight is based on the centralized method with leader and follower airplanes. The formation flight controller was verified through numerical simulation with 3 followers and hardware-in-the loop simulation with 1 follower. This paper describes controller design methods, hardware-in-the-looped simulation test, and performance verification using simulation.