Research on Formation Configuration Optimization Method for Cooperative Navigation of Multiple Flight Vehicles

Multiple flight vehicles (MFV) cooperative navigation uses high-precision ranging information between multiple nodes to suppress the divergence of the inertial navigation system, which will improve navigation accuracy and save costs. In this paper, the observability theory of the piece-wise constant system (PWCS) and the degree of observability calculation method based on singular value decomposition (SVD) are used to study the observability of MFV cooperative navigation systems in three-dimensional space. The effects of formation size and spatial configuration with and without control inputs on the observability and navigation performance of the system are analyzed, and the minimum formation size that ensures the observability of the system and the optimal formation configuration in this situation are obtained. The simulation results show that in the case of a small formation size, by adjusting the formation configuration and changing the control input, the observability of the cooperative navigation system can be enhanced, the filtering convergence speed and navigation accuracy can be improved.