Multi-UAV Cooperative Navigation Method Based on Fusion of GNSSINSVCS Positioning Information

In a complex electromagnetic environment, the satellite signals and communication links of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems are often unstable or susceptible to interference. In this paper, a cooperative navigation method is proposed by combining GNSS/INS integrated navigation technology with visual navigation technology, based on the effective information collected by onboard sensors. This method fuses the relative navigation information of multiple UAV (multi-UAV) digital image maps with the absolute navigation information obtained by each UAV. Navigation message transmission rules are designed to reduce the amount of information exchanged between UAVs. By deploying the Kalman filter algorithm across the UAVs, the computational requirements are reduced and computational efficiency is improved. Finally, relevant experiments are conducted in a simulated mission scenario, and the results demonstrate that the proposed method satisfies the design requirements in terms of the accuracy of position and velocity information in cooperative navigation.