Coordinated Standoff Target Tracking Guidance Method for UAVs

We need a coordinated control method to continuously track a moving target using a group of UAVs. In this paper, we study the predicted reference point guidance method, where the target is considered to move with a constant velocity in a very short time window and the trajectories of the UAVs are designed as several tiny arcs around the target. The control law of the UAV is divided into roll angle control and velocity control. Simulations are used to verify that the proposed control laws have smaller standoff distances and phase angle control errors than the Lyapunov vector field guidance and model-based predictive control, and the wind is considered in the simulation, too. Therefore, we show that our proposed method has higher steady state accuracy among existing techniques.