Pseudospectral optimal control approach-based cooperative planning for UAV formations with mission-oriented formation selection

Cooperative path planning for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems is challenged by complex kinematic constraints, coordination constraints, and maintaining optimized formations. This work characterizes mission-oriented performance constrained formation and integrates them into cooperative path planning under multiple constraints. A mission-oriented performance constrained formation model covering reconnaissance, penetration, damage and communication capabilities is proposed, and the simulated annealing particle swarm optimization algorithm (SAPSO) is used for optimization to achieve the desired formation. A cooperative path planning algorithm based on the radau pseudospectral method (RPM) is proposed, by converting the optimal control problem into a nonlinear programming problem, an cooperative path planning method under multiple constraints is realized. Simulations of a UAV formation validate that the proposed approach generates smooth, collision-free trajectories that maintain the optimized formation while satisfying all kinematic, performance, and cooperative constraints.