Abstract—This paper presents a new approach to formation control of a swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to track a moving target in dynamic environment based on the artificial potential field method combined with a state feedback controller. In this approach, an attractive potential field is generated between the leader and the target by the relative position of them to drive the leader to track the target. The other robots in the swarm are controlled by the attractive potential field between them and the leader to follow the leader. By the influence of the potential field between neighboring robots, the organization of the swarm is stable and robust, and the collisions do not happen in the swarm. Obstacle avoidance is driven by a repulsive potential field thatis created in the region around the obstacles. The effectiveness of the proposed approach has been verified in simulations.

Index Terms—formation control, potential field method, nonlinear control, aircraft control

Cite: AnhDuc Dang and Joachim Horn, "Formation Control of Leader-Following UAVs to Track a Moving Target in a Dynamic Environment," Jounal of Automation and Control Engineering, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 1-8, February, 2015. doi: 10.12720/joace.3.1.1-8