• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2005.06a
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• pp.463-467
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• 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
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 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 the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.36 no.9
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• pp.859-866
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• 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
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• v.14 no.1
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• pp.75-84
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• 2013

In this paper, the guidance law for formation flight and collision avoidance of multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV)s is proposed. To construct the physically comprehensible guidance law for formation flight, the virtual structure approach is used. To develop a guidance law for collision avoidance considering both other UAVs and unknown static obstacles, a geometric approach using information such as a relative position vector is utilized. Through the Lyapunov theorem, the stability of the proposed guidance law is proved. To combine guidance commands, the concept of the elastic weighting factor inspired by the elastic behavior of shape memory polymer, which tends to regain its original shape after deformation, is introduced. By using the concept of elastic weighting factor, multiple UAVs are able to cope actively with the situation of a collision between both UAVs and static obstacles during the formation flight. To verify the performance of the proposed method, numerical simulations are performed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.39 no.2
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• pp.121-127
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• 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 Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.87-93
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• 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 Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.20 no.12
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• pp.1217-1224
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• 2014

This paper presents a modified track guidance algorithm for formation flight of multiple UAVs. The suggested guidance algorithm is the spatial version of the first order dynamic characteristics for a time-dependent system so the algorithm is able to generate a path without overshoot to track the desired line. A crucial design parameter is a spatial constant that controls the shape of the convergence to an assigned flight path similarly to a time constant. Reference flight trajectories are designed based on a two-dimensional vehicle model, and the performance of the proposed guidance law is verified by numerical simulation using rigid body UAV dynamics with MATLAB/Simulink Aerosim Blockset.

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.12 no.1
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• pp.16-23
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• 2011

In this paper, nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) is addressed to develop formation guidance for multiple unmanned aerial vehicles. An NMPC algorithm predicts the behavior of a system over a receding time horizon, and the NMPC generates the optimal control commands for the horizon. The first input command is, then, applied to the system and this procedure repeats at each time step. The input constraint and state constraint for formation flight and inter-collision avoidance are considered in the proposed NMPC framework. The performance of NMPC for formation guidance critically degrades when there exists a communication failure. In order to address this problem, the modified optimal guidance law using only line-of-sight, relative distance, and own motion information is presented. If this information can be measured or estimated, the proposed formation guidance is sustainable with the communication failure. The performance of this approach is validated by numerical simulations.

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

• International Journal of Aeronautical and Space Sciences
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• v.9 no.1
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• pp.31-41
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• 2008

This paper deals with the energy saving problem of the follower aircraft in the loose leader-follower formation geometry in which the lateral separation between formation members is more than a wingspan of the leader aircraft. This formation geometry offers no drag benefit, but has a strategic advantage. In the case of loose formation flight, the follower aircraft usually consumes more energy than the leader aircraft because the follower aircraft should use more thrust to maintain given formation geometry, especially during the turning phase from the outside of the leader"s flight path or join-up phase. A formation control scheme based on the energy maneuverability is proposed in this paper. To design the proposed control law, the velocity command is designed using feedback linearization for the horizontal formation geometry and then coverts it to the altitude command using the energy equation. Numerical simulation is performed to verify the effectiveness of the proposed controller.