A new flocking algorithm for UAVs using a distributed control approach

In recent years, with the development of Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology in various fields such as military industry, telecommunications, meteorological research and espionage and etc. studies on the mass movement of UAVs have attracted the attention of various scientists. This article pursues objectives such as ensuring the information security of UAV groups, maximizing the UAV group detection range, and minimizing the communication range by improving the Olfati Saber’s flocking algorithm. An improved control algorithm can help track the speed of virtual leaders by each agent. Then we introduce a concept called virtual communication circle to control the communication power of each UAV to ensure no collisions and stable communication. Multiple UAVs can track the virtual leader for batch flight, and a distributed participatory control strategy can be achieved. The simulation results at the end of this paper show the effectiveness of this algorithm for the group system of UAVs.