Three-dimensional Guidance Law for Formation Flight of UAV

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.