Event‐triggered cooperative control for moving target encirclement and tracking with time‐varying pattern by UAV formation

Abstract

AbstractThis paper investigates an event‐triggered cooperative control policy of moving‐target encirclement and tracking with time‐varying radius commands for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) formation. Different from the existing works, this study takes into account the relative motion model between the UAVs and the target in order to design a guidance law specifically tailored for moving‐target encirclement and tracking. Additionally, a time‐varying radius command is introduced, allowing the radius of the circular orbit formed by the UAVs around the target to adjust according to the commands. This flexibility and adaptability enhance the UAV formation's performance in complex work scenes and unstructured geometric spaces. To address the concerns of communication and computing costs associated with time‐triggered guidance laws, an event‐triggered method is proposed for dynamic target encirclement and tracking, eliminating the occurrence of Zeno behaviour. The stability of the proposed guidance laws is mathematically proven using the interconnected systems lemma. Finally, the effectiveness of the controllers is verified by some simulations.