Cooperative Formation and Attack Control for Multiple Fixed-Wing UAVs

Small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a pivotal platform for low-altitude operations, including reconnaissance and swarm attacks, owing to their lightweight design, low cost, and operational efficiency. Addressing the key issue of designing a control method for multi-UAV formation flight and coordinated attack is of utmost importance. In this paper, we propose a mission-driven distributed cooperative control method for multiple UAVs. Initially, a distributed formation control algorithm based on a virtual leader is employed to facilitate formation flight among multiple UAVs. Subsequently, a distributed cooperative guidance (DCG) algorithm with temporal consistency constraints is utilized to enable UAVs to execute a coordinated attack. Simulations verify the effectiveness of the proposed method, which demonstrates the capability of multiple UAVs to form a stable formation and transition seamlessly between different formations. The simulation results indicate that the proposed cooperative guidance algorithm achieves over 95% reduction in impact time deviation compared to conventional proportional navigation guidance (PNG) methods.