Multiple UAV Formations for Cooperative Source Seeking and Contour Mapping of a Radiative Signal Field

In this paper, four scenarios are presented for cooperative source seeking and contour mapping of a radiative signal field by multiple UAV formations. A source seeking strategy is adopted with saturation, and then it is modified to achieve contour mapping of the signal field with the moving source situation considered. A formation controller used for consensus problem is simplified and applied in the scenarios to stabilize the multiple UAV formation flight during source detection. The contour mapping strategy and the formation control algorithm are combined to guarantee stable source seeking and contour mapping in both circular flight path and square flight path via multiple UAV formations. J. Han (B) Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, UT 84322-4120, USA e-mail: [email protected] J. Han College of Control Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan, Shandong 250061, China Y. Chen MESA Lab, School of Engineering, University of California, Merced, Merced, CA 95343, USA e-mail: [email protected]