Close Formation Flight Test of Low-Cost Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarms

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarms, especially fixed-wing ones, have been believed as a “game-changing” technology, and been paid close attention during the past one decade. This paper aims to present in detail the close formation flight of a swarm consisting of 16 fixed-wing UAVs. The formation control strategy based on the consensus theory to maintain the the desired geometrical configuration and a finite-time disturbance observer to account for the unknown external disturbances is firstly proposed. The flight system architecture, including mainly hardware and software designs, is then presented. The experimental results are finally exhibited and discussed.