Cooperative Standoff Tracking of Moving Targets Using Modified Lyapunov Vector Field Guidance

Cooperative standoff tracking of moving targets is an important application of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). To cope with the problem of long convergence time and unstable tracking in cooperative target tracking, traditional Lyapunov vector field guidance (LVFG) is modified. The guidance parameter c is discussed, and the gradient descent method is utilized to develop the optimal guidance parameter search algorithm. As for tracking moving targets, an interacting multiple model-based unscented Kalman filter (IMM-UKF) estimator is built for predicting the target state, and the result is used for correcting the guidance law. Meanwhile, a speed-based controller is developed for faster convergence to the desired intervehicle phase, and the stability of the controller is proved using the Lyapunov stability theory. Numerical simulation results indicate the proposed guidance converges faster to the standoff circle without intersecting the orbit. The state estimator reduces the estimate error and the intervehicle phase converges faster to the desired phase than the traditional control method. Furthermore, extensive hardware-in-the-loop simulations are carried out to verify the feasibility of the algorithm.