Formation Keeping Method Based on NMPC for Fixed-Wing UAV with Kinematic Constraints

Formation keeping is a critical aspect of multi-UAV formation flight. For fixed-wing UAVs, meeting kinematic constraints is paramount to achieving formation flight. This paper presents a novel formation keeping approach that employs nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) to address the kinematic constraints of fixed-wing UAVs. Firstly, the study establishes an NMPC control framework that incorporates the kinematic constraints of fixed-wing UAVs into the objective function. Subsequently, two new cost functions with reasonable penalties are introduced to the objective function to ensure that the UAVs can avoid obstacles and other UAVs. The effectiveness of the proposed control method is demonstrated through simulations in a simulated environment with unknown obstacles. Finally, experiments on fixed-wing UAV platform corroborate the advantages of the proposed approach, which include low tracking error and easy handling of constraints. Thus, the proposed method is well-suited to solving formation keeping problems with unknown obstacle scenarios for fixed-wing UAVs.