Group motion control for UAV swarm confrontation using distributed dynamic target assignment

Abstract

For UAV swarm confrontation, group motion control is the key of UAV swarm to accomplish the assigned task, in which target assignment is the premise of group movement of UAVs. Most of the target assignment algorithms used in the traditional unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) swarm confrontation are centralized, which can match and optimize targets in the static environment of limited aircraft units. However, many limitations will be generated if applied to the dynamic confrontation tasks of large-scale UAV clusters. Moreover, the countermeasures of the traditional UAV swarm countermeasure model are relatively simple and not suitable for the complex countermeasures task requirements in reality. To solve the above problems, a group motion control method using the extend consensus-based bundle algorithm (ECBBA) algorithm is proposed in this paper to carry out the dynamic grouping behavior of UAV swarm. The distributed target assignment algorithm is assembled to improve the efficiency of grouping, supporting the UAV dynamic real-time target assignment, for implementing large-scale group dynamic confrontation. The proposed group motion control strategy of UAV swarm is designed, based on the control of single-group motion and the setting of confrontation behavior. The effectiveness of the proposed ECBBA-based group motion control strategy is verified by simulation experiments.