Turning Control of Multiple UAVs Imitating the Super-Maneuver Behavior in Massive Starlings

A turning control method of UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) swarm is proposed by mimicking the supermaneuver behaviors of massive starlings, to achieve rapid and uniform turning of the large-scale UAV swarm in dynamic uncertain environments. Firstly, three mechanisms including neighbor selection, local interaction, and information transfer are established by analyzing the super-maneuver behaviors of massive starlings, which are mapped to the turning control of UAV swarm. Based these mechanisms, an improved social force model is applied to the turning control of UAV swarm, and thus the UAV swarm can realize fast aggregation and speed polarization when there isn't any external stimulus. In the case of external stimulus, the UAVs switch the mode and the whole UAV swarm can quickly complete the super-maneuver turning to avoid dangers. Finally, simulation experiment results verify that the UAV swarm can not only meet the requirements of turning curvature, but also maintain the uniformity of the swarm motion based on the proposed model.