| This research develops the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) control guidance laws for two UAVs to track a moving ground target in a constant wind while maintaining position coordination with each other. The guidance control is intended to aid an independently controlled camera carried onboard the UAV that gathers data for visual position estimation. Two guidance law command sets are pursued. The performance of the coordination guidance laws are shown to be poor when communication is lost. Observers are formulated that significantly increase guidance law robustness due to communication loss and rate variability. The guidance laws are demonstrated to be viable using real-time, hardware-quality simulation and flight testing. To accommodate more advanced constraints, a tracking guidance law using evolutionary computation is developed from an existing strategic path planning algorithm. To demonstrate its capabilities, the UAV is required to avoid radar detection while tracking. |
