An Intelligent Approach to Coordinated Control of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This paper introduces a novel architecture for the coordinated control of multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and a differential game theoretical approach to formation control and collision avoidance. The hierarchical architecture features an upper level with global situation awareness and team mission planning, a middle level with local knowledge, formation control and obstacle avoidance, and a low level that interfaces with onboard baseline controllers, sensors, communication and weapon systems. Each level consists of several interacting agents with dedicated functions. The formation control problem is viewed as a Pursuit Game of n pursuers and n evaders. Stability of the formation of vehicles is guaranteed if the vehicles can reach their destinations within a specified time, assuming that the destination points are avoiding the vehicles in an optimal fashion. A two-vehicle example is shown to illustrate the approach. Vehicle model is simplified to point mass with acceleration limit. Collision avoidance is achieved by designing the value function so that it ensures that the two vehicles move away from one another when they come too close to each one. Simulation results are provided to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.