Fully actuated system approach-based fault-tolerant formation reconstruction control and optimal task assignment for fixed-wing UAVs

In this paper, a novel distributed fault-tolerant formation control protocol is developed for fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles, which suffer from actuator and communication link faults. To address communication link faults within the formation, the distributed state observer is designed for each follower UAV. Subsequently, the model of the fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle is transformed into a fully actuated system mode. Drawing from the theory of fully actuated system approach, the fault-tolerant controller is constructed. Simultaneously, by applying a newly designed artificial potential function, collisions can be avoided during the formation-rebuilding process. Furthermore, the improved Hungarian algorithm is introduced to ensure that the total flight distance flown by the unmanned aerial vehicles during formation reconstruction is as short as possible, while minimizing the difference between the farthest and the nearest flight distances. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme in this paper.