Distributed formation control for UAV-USV heterogeneous systems with secure and privacy-preserving ability

This paper tackles the air-sea formation trajectory tracking problem for heterogeneous multi-agent systems, comprising unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned surface vessels (USVs), using a secure and privacy-preserving framework with sampled-data interactions. A hierarchical control approach is introduced, including a fixed-time tracking controller for UAVs, sample-based estimators, and a nonlinear formation controller for USVs. The Paillier cryptosystem is used to ensure secure communication among USVs. Theoretical analysis provides conditions for system stability, and numerical simulations confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.