Autonomous Cooperative Flocking for Heterogeneous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Group

Multi-UAV is a complete system represented by multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) through collaborative technology. Besides, the UAV group has the advantages in the number and functions that a single UAV does not have. In a complex environment, a single UAV cannot complete a large number of material transportations and escort functions. This paper, from the perspective of cooperative control and material escort of the UAV group, solves the escort problem in the UAV group cruise. Then, an autonomous cooperative flocking algorithm for heterogeneous UAV swarm (ACHF) is proposed. Firstly, the movement control factor of the escort UAV is proposed, and the escort UAV is deployed in the periphery of the transport UAV in the flocking process. Secondly, the system loss function including position and angle is proposed to make the escort UAV deployed as evenly as possible in the periphery of the transport UAV. Finally, in the case of different numbers of UAVs and different environments, the effectiveness of ACHF is supported by theoretical analysis and demonstrated by experiments. The results show that the escort UAVs can be evenly distributed in the periphery of the transport UAVs, forming a group of UAVs with autonomous cooperative capability.