Distributed control of target cooperative encirclement and tracking using range-based measurements

This paper investigates a distributed coordinate-free control method of ground target cooperative encirclement and tracking for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) formation. Different from the existing methods, the relevant information for the circumnavigation can be measured by the UAV sensors rather than directly from the tracked target. Based on these distance measurements, a multi-UAV encirclement guidance law that satisfies both target coordination and tracking is designed. According to the proposed lemma of interconnected system, the formation system under the guidance law is globally uniformly asymptotically stable. The effectiveness and advantages of the proposed controller are validated via simulations.