Formation construction and reconfiguration control of UAV swarms: a perspective from distributed assignment and optimization

This article proposes a framework for the swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to swiftly construct a formation. The framework also enables the swarm to reconfigure the formation effectively in a distributed way when the number of UAVs changes. Different from the classic formation methods, we endow each UAV with an objective function and an assignment vector. Then, a novel distributed optimization protocol is designed for the formation construction, which enables the swarm to construct the desired formation within a prescribed time. The formation needs to be reconfigured when some UAVs leave or join the swarm. A distributed assignment protocol is raised for the reconfiguration problem, which aims at reassigning the relative positions for the UAVs and reconfiguring the swarm formation. This article integrates these two protocols into one framework, where the transition between the formation construction and its reconfiguration is smooth. The distributed design of the framework improves the individual UAV’s decision-making ability. We further give the proofs of consensus and optimality of the two protocols. The simulation results confirm the effectiveness of the framework.