Cooperative Multi-UAVs Configuration Maintenance Based on Inter-aircraft Ranging in Navigation Denial Environment

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm cannot receive GNSS signals in the navigation denial environment, and the loss of GNSS signal calibration fusion of the positional data will result in excessive errors leading to the loss of the swarm's positioning capability. To address the problem of GNSS signal loss and navigation failure in this rejection environment, a cooperative control method based on inter-UAV communication range observation information is proposed. Firstly this method obtains the distance information between nodes within the cluster through inter-UAV communication. Then the range information and part of the inertial data are used to establish the relative coordinate system and the information of the UAV centralized configuration under the relative coordinate system, and then the barometric altitude information and magnetic compass information of each UAV are used to maintain the UAV heading, altitude and cluster configuration, so as to improve the survivability of the UAV swarm in the navigation denial environment. Finally, the effectiveness of the method is experimentally verified.