Trajectory Planning and Target Tracking of UAVs Using Multiple Virtual Pheromones

This paper investigates the trajectory planning and target tracking of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in the presence of static obstacles. Specifically, a composite strategy that exploits the action mechanism of multiple virtual pheromones in the environment is proposed, where the static obstacles, target and UAVs are characterized by the repulsive, attractive and traceable pheromones, respectively. Based on the responses to the described virtual pheromones simultaneously, the trajectory planning and target tracking can be achieved for each UAV. Simulation examples are provided to validate the proposed strategy.