Distributed Bearing-Only Formation Control for UAV-UWSV Heterogeneous System

This paper investigates the bearing-only formation control problem of a heterogeneous multi-vehicle system, which includes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and surface (UWSVs). The interactions among are described by particular class directed acyclic graphs, namely leader-first follower (HLFF) graphs. Under HLFF structure, UAV is selected as leader, moving with reference dynamics, while followers, including both UAVs UWSVs, responsible for controlling position regard to neighbors in formation. To solve problem, we propose velocity-estimation-based scheme, consists distributed observer estimating velocity each vehicle law achieving desired based on estimations bearing measurements. Moreover, it shown that translation scale can be uniquely determined leader UAV. theoretical analysis demonstrated finite-time convergence estimation asymptotic tracking. Comparative simulation results provided substantiate effectiveness proposed method.