A novel cooperative control system of multi-missile formation under uncontrollable speed

This article investigates a novel cooperative control system based on the sliding mode variable structure control theory for multi-missile formation flight. It is desired in practice to form and maintain the formation under the premise of uncontrollable missile speed. First, under the inertial coordinate system, we obtain the model of the formation control problem using the relative position of the leader to the follower. Then, we perform acceleration conversion and combine it to this model, getting the form of the formation problem model in the ballistic coordinate system. The finished model is useful for researchers to design the formation controller on this basis. Besides, the sliding mode variable structure control theory is used to design the formation controller for the system not considering disturbances and considering disturbances. Then we use the Lyapunov stability theory to analyze the stability of the formation control system. Finally, we compare our method with another method which requires controllable speed. According to numerical simulations, the method proposed in this article can achieve similar relative position errors under the condition of uncontrollable speed. And the robustness, versatility and formation adaptability of the method we propose are confirmed by simulation results.