A Multi-UAV Coordination Scheme for Tracking Control of Multiple Moving Target Objects

This paper proposes a coordination scheme for multiple unmanned aerial vehicle (multi-UAV) in tracking and monitoring multiple moving vessel objects in maritime patrol operations. In the proposed method, each UAV is assumed to have optical sensors which can measure its distances to moving target vessels. These measurements are processed to obtain estimates of the targets' positions, which then subsequently used to construct convex hulls that cover all detected targets. The multi-UAV tracker system then generates spatio-temporal path curves using cycloid-type trajectories with a formation geometry that is adapted to the convex hulls of the target vessels. A distributed extended Kalman filter which combines state estimates from different trackers is also used to improve the estimation accuracy of the target positions. A distributed control law is proposed to maintain the tracker-target's relative geometry which capture accurate tracking of moving target vessels. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the proposed schemes' effective performance.