Distributed Motion Control of UAVs for Cooperative Target Location Under Compound Constraints

This paper focuses on the cooperative motion control problem for a dual-UAV system to locate a target under compound constraints and limited maneuverability. A pair of optimal observation points is calculated based on the triangulation method, so that the positioning problem can be accomplished by a cooperative formation tracking control of the UAVs. Theoretically, the paper achieves the target state estimation and prediction based on the Extended Kalman Filter method, and introduces a distributed motion control algorithm of dual-UAV for cooperative target positioning based on the optimal observation points and artificial potential field. The proposed method satisfies the constraint conditions and improves the target positioning accuracy when performing target location task. Finally, numerical simulation results verify the effectiveness of the scheme.