Online Path Planning of Autonomous UAVs for Bearing-Only Standoff Multi-Target Following in Threat Environment

The problem of steering multiple fixed-wing autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to follow the multiple noncooperative and high agile surface targets at a specified standoff distance in a threat environment is studied. Two kinds of threats and missed detection of bearing-only sensors are considered. The average nonlinear least-square estimation method is proposed to acquire the position of the targets using noisy measurements, and then, the trajectories of the targets are approximated by the quadratic functions of time. Dummy targets of the same number as UAVs are created according to the task allocation result to achieve the optimal geometric configuration of the multiple cooperative UAVs. And a case-based guidance method is established to finally accomplish the multi-target standoff following mission on-line. Simulation experiments are given to assess the proposed method.