A survey on multiple unmanned vehicles formation control and coordination: Normal and fault situations

This paper provides a review on the strategies and methodologies developed in recent years for trajectory/path following, coordination and unified group behavior of a team of unmanned vehicles in terms of application and categorization. The unmanned vehicles being studied have a common mission to maintain group formation and reach their target destinations in either known or unknown environments. The ability for a group of vehicles to follow individual paths is the first critical step in achieving group coordination and originates from path following employing a single vehicle. Once this technique is refined then various algorithm constructs can be explored in order to create efficient and harmonious group coordination, which is based on their originality on whether they are employed in a centralized or decentralized system. In this paper, survey and analysis on the various multi-vehicle applications in formation operation and categorizations of existing works are provided based on over 140 published literatures since 1986. A few challenges and future works are also recognized.