Cooperative target tracking in balanced circular formation: Multiple UAVs tracking a ground vehicle

Abstract

This paper extends our previous results on vision-based target tracking of a ground vehicle by one UAV to cooperative tracking using multiple UAVs. An early-designed guidance law that orbits one UAV around the moving target is augmented with an additional term for coordination. This extra term, which can be computed based on the relative bearing angle between two UAVs, puts all UAVs into a balanced circular formation, where all agents spread evenly on a circle. Three communication topologies are considered, i.e., an all-to-all communication, a ring topology, and a cyclic pursuit topology. The effectiveness of the proposed cooperative target tracking control laws is demonstrated by numerical simulation examples.