Optimal Unmanned Ground Vehicle-Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Formation-Maintenance Control for Air-Ground Cooperation

This paper investigates the air-ground cooperative time-varying formation-tracking control problem of a heterogeneous cluster system composed of an unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) and an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). Initially, the structure of the UAV-UGV formation-control system is analyzed from the perspective of a cooperative combat system. Next, based on the motion relationship between the UAV-UGV in a relative coordinate system, the relative motion model between them is established, which can clearly reveal the physical meaning of the relative motion process in the UAV-UGV system. Then, under the premise that the control system of the UAG is closed-loop stable, the motion state of the UGV is modeled as an input perturbation. Finally, using a linear quadratic optimal control theory, a UAV-UGV formation-maintenance controller is designed to track the reference trajectory of the UGV based on the UAV-UGV relative motion model. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed controller can overcome input perturbations, model-constant perturbations, and linearization biases. Moreover, it can achieve fast and stable adjustment and maintenance control of the desired UAV-UGV formation proposed by the cooperative combat mission planning system.