Application of Bio-inspired Formation Flight Control to Two Fixed Wing Airplanes

—Formation flight control is an effective method for small unmanned air vehicles (UAVs) to improve the limited performance of an individual UAV in a powerful aggregated system as a group. In this study, formation flight control with two fixed wing airplanes as examples of UAVs were investigated based on the collective motion of organisms where simple local interactions, such as, attraction, repulsion, and parallel orientation, form an orderly motion. A control system for the aforementioned interactions was developed using a microcomputer, motion sensor, direction sensor, GPS, and communication devices and was implemented on two fixed wing type airplanes. Flight tests were conducted for the attraction-repulsion and the parallel orientation controls, and the cooperated flight of two fixed wing airplanes was successfully accomplished, indicating the feasibility of the bio-inspired formation flight control.