Distributed UAV flocking control based on homing pigeon hierarchical strategies

Abstract The recent boom of animal collective motion investigation has attracted many researchers to the field of applying such intelligence to complicated distribute control problems in artificial systems, such as autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) flocking. In this paper, a distributed control framework inspired by homing pigeon hierarchical strategies is proposed to solve the UAV flocking problem. This new approach combines the advantages of velocity correlation, leader-follower interaction and hierarchical leadership network observed in pigeon flock with altitude consensus control algorithm used in UAV flocking. The flocking control algorithm is implemented to achieve a stable performance by controlling local position and velocity of each UAV. The practical dynamic and constraints of fix-wing UAV are also taken into account. The distributed flocking algorithms are tested in several simulation cases, which verify the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control framework.