Path Planning and Distributed Control of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle Systems in Dynamic Environments

The integration of path planning and cooperative control of multiple uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) systems is an effective way to implement complex tasks in dynamic environments. However, most of the existing methods often address path planning and cooperative control as separate entities, hindering their seamless integration. To address this deficiency, this paper proposes a distributed integrated framework that combines path planning and cooperative formation control to safely avoid obstacle areas and complete formation control. First, an adaptive variable solution space-based rapidly-exploring random tree (RRT) global path planner is designed. The planner provides each UAV with global planning for safely traversing obstacle regions within a fixed time. Second, a predefined-time filter-based local path planner is developed, leveraging the velocity obstacle method, to swiftly avoid dynamic obstacles with unknown velocities. With the planning information for each UAV, a fixed-time sliding mode formation controller is designed to achieve formation tracking. This controller avoids the singular phenomenon and influence of initial state on convergence time. Finally, the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms is validated through simulation experiments.