Autonomous Command and Control System for UAV Formation
Ajay Kumar Verma, Chang-Nien Wu, Vincent Castelli · 2003
In this paper we present a conceptual Flight Command and Control (FCC) system that facilitates an autonomous cooperative mission control among a group of UAVs operating in an uncertain partially connected wireless network of mobile nodes. A design objective was to implement algorithms that will minimize the bandwidth usage without compromising the stability of the operation. The paper mainly focuses on formation control and distributed implementation of the FCC system. The scope of FCC considered in this paper includes automatic formation control, automatic approach control to assist the approaching UAV join a formation. We also present the distributed implementation of the control algorithms, under a degraded wireless communication network. The data tracking, data fusion and data validation implemented in our approach improve the robustness and the estimation accuracy and finally results in communication bandwidth reduction. Simulation results demonstrate a complex cooperative formation command and control that also accommodate accretion and attrition of UAVs in the formation.