A Novel Time-Synchronized Distributed Consensus Control Design for Multi-UAV Formation

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This paper explores the challenges of multi-UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) cooperative formation control, particularly in specialized tasks such as cooperative interception. While traditional finite-time and fixed-time control methods have proven effective in many scenarios, they fall short in addressing missions that require simultaneous arrival at a target location. To overcome this limitation, we propose an innovative approach for UAV formation control that ensures synchronized arrival. This approach utilizes a distributed communication mechanism, enabling UAVs to exchange estimated arrival times and guarantee simultaneous target reach. Unlike conventional methods, our approach successfully overcomes the algebraic loop problem, thereby reducing computational delays and system instability while ensuring formation accuracy. Numerical evidence confrms superior performance of our approach. The results validate its robustness, computational efficiency, and scalability, confirming its reliability and practicality in achieving synchronized UAV formation control.