Research on Multi-UAV Cooperative Formation Control Method Considering Coupling and Communication Delay

Coupling effects and communication delays present major challenges for distributed formation control of multi-UAV formations. This work characterizes coupling effects and integrates them into cooperative control synthesis under delay conditions. A leader state observer is introduced to reconstruct the leader’s state via neighboring information, reducing reliance on direct links and improving communication robustness. A delay aware cooperative control law with coupling effects is then developed, and Lyapunov–Krasovskii analysis establishes matrix inequality conditions to ensure stability. The key innovation lies in actively exploiting communication coupling to accelerate the error convergence rate and ensure formation tracking under communication delays. Theoretical analysis, grounded in the Lyapunov stability theorem, elucidates the mechanism by which coupling effects accelerate the error convergence rate. The effectiveness of the proposed method is validated through simulations of leader–follower formations.