Distributed Guidance for Interception by Using Multiple Rotary-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

In this paper, a distributed guidance law is proposed for multiple rotary-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to intercept multiple intruding targets. The proposed distributed guidance law is based on integrated parallel navigation and pure pursuit. Potential functions are applied to avoid inter-agent collisions and mis-interceptions. The main distinct features of the proposed distributed guidance law include: 1) it does not rely on the theory of consensus; and 2) the strategy of collision avoidance is orientation-based ( instead of distance-based or position-based). It can be proved theoretically that, with the proposed distributed guidance law, each UAV is capable of intercepting its target with finite time and non-zero hitting velocity, and there exist neither inter-agent collisions nor mis-interceptions before interceptions. Theoretical results are illustrated by a simulation example.